Title Role Fits Lakers

The eyes of the sport were on New York City, where Michael Jordan attempted to exhume his former self, not to mention his former game. A television in the Laker locker room carried the broadcast, and no one watched. On the television in the training room, where most players spend pre-game, the Yankees played.

Meantime, the Lakers ran a second consecutive banner to the top of the south wall, then introduced what Coach Phil Jackson called his best Laker team.

The first two won NBA titles.

They started immediately on what they hope will be their third, with a 98-87 defeat of the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday night at Staples Center, with an eye toward something resembling a dynasty, before a crowd of 18,997.

Meantime, the Lakers ran out Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, O’Neal for his 10th season, Bryant for his sixth. Together, perhaps really together , for their first. Still finding his wind, O’Neal scored 29 points, took 18 rebounds and made nine of 16 free throws .

“I’m still good enough to do what I do,� O’Neal said with a grin.

Bryant also scored 29 points, seven in the final minute of the third quarter, and he helped push a tempo that resulted in 25 fast-break points for the Lakers.

Meantime, everyone with an opinion has picked the Lakers to win again, and again after that, because O’Neal and Bryant oftentimes are enough, with just a little help from the rest. Robert Horry scored 10 points, as did newcomer Lindsey Hunter, and Laker defenders--Rick Fox, Hunter and Bryant chief among them--limited the Trail Blazers to 42.5% shooting.

Rasheed Wallace, guarded by a rotation of three Laker power forwards, scored 22 points on 21 shots. Scottie Pippen, the second-most famous former Chicago Bull on Tuesday night, had two points.

“I don’t want to say anything came easy,� Bryant said. “But, we might have surprised ourselves at the way we came out, the way we held them down defensively.�

The Lakers led by as many as 17 points in the second quarter, and then Bonzi Wells stood at the free-throw line with a minute and a half left in the third quarter, down two.

Wells missed both, and the Lakers finished the quarter with an 11-2 run. Horry hit a three-pointer from the right corner, which apparently triggered something in Bryant. He hit a runner in the lane, was fouled by Steve Kerr and made the free throw. Then he dunked off a break, and as time wound down, he hit a three-pointer over the hand of Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje. The Lakers pushed their lead to 79-68, and weren’t in much trouble through the fourth quarter. They never trailed.

“The game just came,� Jackson said. “Kobe was patient with the game and it came to him. That’s what happens to guys who score.�

So they’ll start with that, anyway, with the sense they are bulletproof, carrying gold and diamond rings chiseled with their playoff record--an unconscious 15-1--on the shanks of the rings.

They attempted to bring the same edge last season, found it didn’t come with a particular knack for playing defense, and changed their mind-set. Around April, it began to work for them.

“It’s very hard to play in the front,� Jackson had said. “It’s very hard to maintain that edge that you have to maintain for eight months, seven months, whatever it is to complete a season and then to go into the playoffs. It’s a challenge. We respect the opinion. We think that’s what we should be. I mean I think these players believe that. As a coach, it’s scary when you’re picked there. There’s no place to go but down. And yet I think it’s very important for us to wear that. After you repeat you should be odds-on favorite, especially by the fact we have a lot of our team coming back from last year. We get [Derek Fisher] back, Mark Madsen back, we’ll be a healthy team with a lot of balance.�

There was no “blood in the air,� as Jackson had observed at the season opener in Portland last year. The Trail Blazers are not the sure thing they were thought of then, and in fact could have serious problems.

Conversely, when the Lakers are healthy, and that should happen by the holidays, they could be end-to-end good, what they weren’t last year. Not that it mattered, really.

“I think it’s the most talented team,� Jackson said of his three Laker clubs. “We had experience last year with Horace [Grant], a great defensive player that we could throw out there and we had a variety of little options that we had in the team. But, nothing like the talent this team has, and the experience now to go with it.

“I think that we have a group of experienced players that are playing together now for three years, and we have enough experience to overcome some of the adversity that might have gotten us, or ambushed us, or snuck up on us in certain phases of the season the last couple years.

“I think we’re prepared to attack this thing with the kind of patience and yet enthusiasm, patience with ourselves, with the fact everything doesn’t always go right. You have to absorb injuries and losses and bad things, little bumps in the road as you go down the NBA season. But I think we’ve got the experience and the patience now that we can absorb a lot more than we could before.�

Before they could do that, the Lakers held their ceremony, their celebration of last season, intentionally muted beside a tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The fans booed Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik, a nice man who isn’t David Stern. Chick Hearn chastised them for it.

The players and the staff took their rings in shiny wood boxes.

Then the banner was raised, beneath the one the Lakers won the year before.

Seal sang “Imagine.�

Then they played, and the Lakers were lively, still more than Portland can take.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE THIRD DEGREE

The Lakers opened their quest for a three peat with a 98-87 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. Teams that have won two consecutive NBA titles since the 1979-80 season, and what they did in the third season. (* denotes teams coached by Phil Jackson):

LAKERS--1986-87, ‘87-88

Lost to Detroit in NBA Finals

DETROIT--1988-89, ‘89-90

Lost to Chicago in conference finals

CHICAGO--1990-91*, ‘91-92*

Beat Phoenix in NBA Finals

HOUSTON--1993-94, ‘94-95

Lost to Seattle

in conference semifinals

CHICAGO--1995-96*, ‘96-97*

Beat Utah in NBA Finals