| Thursday, March 16
By Mike Monroe
Special to ESPN.com |
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|  | | Popeye Jones tries, unsuccessfully, to contain the Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal. |
The number is 19, and counting.
At the moment, there doesn't look to be a team in the NBA capable of
beating the Lakers, whose 118-108 win over the Nuggets on Monday got
them to 19 straight wins, which is tied for third-longest win streak in
NBA history.
Next up: Matching the second-longest streak ever when the Lakers meet
the Wizards in Washington.
Think Phil Jackson will want his guys to put on a good performance in
front of his old friend, Michael Jordan?
The Lakers are in the process of making a shambles of the race for best
record in the Western Conference (which everyone knows by now means best
record in the entire league)
Can it really be just two weeks ago that the Lakers moved into first in
the West with their convincing win at Portland? Now they lead the Trail
Blazers by four games in the loss column with only 18 games left.
Does anyone believe the Lakers will lose four games before season's
end?
Didn't think so.
How far can they extend the streak?
I expect it to end before their five-game road trip concludes this
coming Monday in Miami. They will get that 20th win in Washington with
little sweat, and establishing themselves as sole possessors of the
second-longest win streak in league history ought to provide just enough
driving force when they play the next night, in Detroit. What will
probably be too daunting will be back-to-back games Sunday and Monday in
New York and Miami.
Then again, as long as Shaquille O'Neal's hamstring holds up, who is to
say they can't keep it going.
Oh, yes ... there is a little cloud hovering on the Lakers' rosy
horizon. Shaq has a right hamstring strain, which didn't
keep him from laying 40 points, nine rebounds and seven assists on the
Nuggets in that 19th win. But it had been aggravating him enough that
Jackson had considered the possibility of holding him out of Monday's
game, or at least curtailing his court time.
O'Neal ended up logging 44 minutes, then predicted he would not let
something like an achy hamstring keep him out of games.
"I've got a lot of heart," he said. "I'm on a mission."
O'Neal has been bothered by the sore hamstring for more than a week,
but the Lakers had done a great job of keeping the injury secret until
Jackson spilled the beans after Monday's victory.
You could have fooled the Nuggets by telling them O'Neal wasn't at full
strength. They had gotten no clue from watching him destroy them.
"For a guy who already had talent to be playing like that right now,"
said Denver power forward Antonio McDyess, whose defensive duty on
O'Neal resulted in disqualification with six fouls, "I would be scared
that he would score 40 every night. I really can see that.
"I just don't see anybody in this league right now that can stop him.
I don't see anyone that can challenge him for the MVP. He's rebounding, blocking shots, hitting free throws," McDyess said.
"What more can you ask for? And now he's throwing assists -- and this is
a 7-footer over 300 pounds."
O'Neal's seven assists Monday were two more than any teammate. Imagine if he had been feeling better.
"I'll get some acupuncture and get rid of it," O'Neal said of the
hamstring pain he described as more nagging than acute. "I've always
been a connoisseur of ancient medicine."
Acupuncture will have to wait for a while. The Lakers play four more
road games before returning to Los Angeles.
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O'Neal said no Lakers opponent should expect him to miss a game because
of an injury he doesn't believe is severe.
As long as O'Neal remains in the Lakers' lineup, there is no telling how
long the Lakers can extend their streak, which has begun to take on
something of a motivational life of its own for a team that hardly
needed additional incentive to keep on winning.
"There's an intrigue about playing this string out," Jackson said of
the streak. "There's sometimes a motivational level that will happen.
Another space, another time, perhaps after we finish this streak and get
into the end of the season we'll have to push to motivate the players at
some level, but right now the winning streak is just kind of intriguing
to go through it and find a way to continue on.
"I think the team will be motivated by the fact that they could be
part of something that's historic in their own professional lives.
That's intriguing for them, but we know we can't take anything for
granted."
L.A.'s win Monday night pushed them beyond the 18-game win streak the
Bulls compiled in 1996 on their way to a 72-10 record and another NBA
title. Ron Harper was on that Chicago team and he is on this Lakers
team, and he remembered that 18-game streak ending in 1996 in Denver.
The streak, Harper said, is inconsequential, just as it was for the
Bulls back in 1996.
"I don't pay those streaks, whatever we done that long ago, no
attention," Harper said. "Only thing I know is we won three rings in a
row. That's all that counts, right? I don't care if you win 19 games in
a row or 700 games straight. If you don't win in the last part of this
year, who cares?
"I already told these guys: It's nice we won 16, 17, whatever many
games we won as a team, but I don't think they've passed out one ring
yet."
In the meantime, jot down this date: April 10.
That's when the Lakers will play the SuperSonics at Staples Center, and
if they haven't lost between now and then, that is when they will try
to match the NBA-record 33 wins in a row recorded by the 1971-72 Lakers.
As long as O'Neal's hamstring holds, it could happen.
Mike Monroe, who covers the NBA for the Denver Post, writes a Western Conference column for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him at monroe128@go.com |  |
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