Season Saved With Help From Fans

The Lakers saved themselves, saved their season, saved millions of Southern Californians several weeks of mourning, and saved their best basketball for the last game of this stunning series.

In front of a roaring Staples Center crowd, Shaquille O’Neal set the pace and the rest of the Lakers took it home, smashing the Kings in the fifth and deciding game of this first-round playoff matchup, 113-86.

The Lakers got the calls from the officials and got an enormous boost from their crowd, the combination of which had the Kings backpedaling and the Lakers once again looking like the best team in the league.

The atmosphere at Staples, usually a dull den of little noise and no crowd involvement, was rousing from the pregame introductions, and appeared to rattle the Kings.

Given the Lakers’ 67 regular-season victories and aspirations toward championship greatness, this was a game that should not have been necessary, against an opponent that slumped into the playoffs.

But, with so much at stake, at such a dramatic moment, the Lakers, and their crowd, were up to the task.

O’Neal, who had been pushed and pestered into a scoring drought in the games at Arco Arena, awoke with sparks flying and lightning bolts coming out of his arms.

Deep into the third quarter, he had outrebounded the Kings on his own, and until he was removed from the game for good early in the fourth quarter, he scored 32 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, both game highs.

IN QUOTES

“It’s like in tennis, every champion usually has an early match when he almost gets upset, and it wakes him up. That’s what this was like for us. The Kings woke us up. They put a little fear in us.”

RICK FOX,

Laker forward

THE SERIES

Lakers win series, 3-2