Lakers Success Will Be Defined By The . . . SHAQ PACK

As the NBA playoffs return to the Great Western Forum tonight, a tad more muddled than when they departed 11 days ago, one notion has become clear.

For the Lakers to continually play well as one team, they must continually remember they are two.

There is Shaquille O’Neal, at this minute the league’s most valuable player.

Then there is everyone else.

“My guys,” he calls them.

The most important guys.

You can fret about that $120-million salary until you get taco neck, but the truth is as plain as Del Harris’ accent.

Shaq cannot bring the Lakers an NBA championship.

Shaq’s Guys can.

Shaq is the splendid-looking leader of a team that, at times, appears to be floating seamlessly toward June.

But it will not get there unless, underneath, Shaq’s Guys continue to paddle like crazy.

For two years, the weight of this franchise has been on Shaq.

Only now has it become clear that the joke is on us.

If the season ends with everyone walking away talking about the greatness of Shaquille O’Neal, then it will not have ended in a championship.

The heroes will have to be Nick Van Exel, and Eddie Jones, and Robert Horry, and Rick Fox, and Derek Fisher, and Kobe Bryant, and Elden Campbell, and Corie Blount.

Or there will be no heroes all.

Shaq probably never counted on this two summers ago when--kazaam--he arrived in Los Angeles and became one of the most visible athletes in the world. But it’s true.

His team plays its best when you hardly know he’s there.

When one of Shaq’s Guys is the leading scorer in games that include Shaq, the Lakers are 12-0.

When one of Shaq’s Guys is the leading rebounder, they are 15-4.

The statistics look the same when standing on their heads.

When Shaq has scored more than 40 points, the Lakers are only 2-1.

When he has grabbed at least 16 rebounds, they are 4-2.

“I like it when you are talking about this guy having a great game and that guy having a great game . . . and then you go, oh yeah, ‘Shaq, he had 30 points and 12 rebounds.’ ” Harris said Thursday. “That’s when you know we’ve done well.”

This works, of course, only because it seems Shaq hardly ever gets less than 30 points and 12 rebounds.

This works because Shaq consistently tells his teammates, “Don’t worry about me, I’ll get mine,” . . . and he does.

When they throw him the ball. And when they don’t.

When they smartly use him as the world’s largest dance partner, cutting and rolling and sliding around him for layups and jumpers.

And when they merely stand and stare.

It doesn’t matter.

“That’s what he tells us, and that’s what he does,” Horry said. “He gets his.”

Which means the length of the Lakers’ hopes has become entirely dependent on the Shaq Pack getting theirs.

Harris has long been preaching this.

“It’s like what [commentator] Reggie Theus says, we’re a flow team,” the coach said. “I don’t know exactly what he means, and I don’t think he knows what he means, but he’s right. We’re a flow team.”

Shaq has recently, finally, felt more comfortable about selling this.

“My guys, they know they have to step up, and they will,” he said. “My guys understand that I don’t care about statistics, I just care about winning.”

He has used that phrase often lately, that “my guys.”

He has used it to both praise and criticize the rest of the team, not only in the locker room, but in places where he thinks it will have more impact, the newspaper.

“When I do certain things in the newspaper, I know what I’m doing,” he said. “I can’t tell you my secret, but . . . these guys read the paper. They don’t like to be embarrassed.”

By using this pet phrase, he is not being divisive, only practical.

“If you didn’t know his heart was in the right place, you’d be like, ‘What is he saying?’ ” Fox said. “But . . . we know it’s about us. I think the good thing is, we have enough to find it.”

Their last two playoff wins on the road would certainly indicate they have acquired a hint.

When they beat the Seattle Supersonics by 24 points Wednesday to even this conference semifinal series at one game apiece, all the talk was of Jones’ 23 points, and Blount’s eight rebounds.

Whey they defeated the Portland Trail Blazers by 11 points last week to close out their first-round series, all the rage was Van Exel’s seven assists and Fox’s nine rebounds.

That Shaq fellow? He scored 31 points and had 15 rebounds in one game, 26 points and 10 rebounds in the other.

And you barely knew he was there.

It has taken most of two seasons, but Shaq’s Guys are finally behaving as though they understand this team’s law of physics:

Those broad shoulders they must ride to greatness are their own.