`OLD HEAD' GIVES KINGS PLENTY OF HEADACHES.

Byline: Karen Crouse

On Easter Sunday, Ron Harper rose from the debilitated if not the dead.

Written off all year as too decrepit to run the floor with the likes of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, the 36-year-old guard put together a marvelous first quarter against Sacramento that set into blurring motion the Lakers' 117-107 victory.

Harper contributed five points, five rebounds and two assists in the opening 12 minutes, as the Lakers raced to a six-point lead over the Kings.

He got his second basket of the quarter by rising like a specter, seemingly materializing out of nowhere to heave home a miss by O'Neal to lengthen the Lakers' lead to 34-26.

Harper's tip-in acted on the sellout Staples Center crowd like a double shot of espresso. About the only person in the building who didn't pop a cornea when Harper took flight and the ball fell through the hoop was Harper. In typically self-deprecating fashion, he said, ``I closed my eyes.''

An awesome game by an aw-shucks guy who sat out the last two regular- season games with a bruised tailbone; how's that for a Hollywood beginning?

For sure, coach Phil Jackson couldn't have scripted it any better. The fast start was precisely what a head doctor would have ordered for a heavily favored team looking to shake some bad playoff mojo.

A stumble out of the gate would have reversed the momentum the Lakers built en route to compiling the league's best regular-season record (67-15). A shaky performance in front of a hyped-up home crowd, and all of the sudden, people would have been looking back, at the Lakers' second- and third-round playoff exits of the previous two years, instead of ahead, to a possibly jubilant June.

``The first game is always the hardest, especially when you have the home-court advantage,'' said O'Neal, who made it look pretty easy, actually, collecting 46 points, 17 rebounds and five blocked shots.

The last of Harper's four assists set up one of O'Neal's more spectacular putaways. After grabbing the rebound at the other end, Harper lobbed an alley-oop pass that O'Neal threw down to put the Lakers up, 111-99, with just over three minutes remaining.

In addition to putting an exclamation point on the afternoon, the play made a point: No matter how cushy their lead, the Lakers weren't about to back off and give the Kings a bit of breathing room.

In 1998 and 1999, the Lakers talked about doing such things. The difference was they didn't have anyone like Harper to breathe life into the words.

Jackson lured Harper, whom he had coached in Chicago, out of retirement so he could be the coach's alter ego on the floor. Harper was a cog in three of Chicago's NBA title runs, so he knew the drill.

His Lakers' teammates know he knows the drill, which makes all the difference. ``He has a couple of rings,'' O'Neal said of Harper. ``So we're going to listen to what he has to say.''

Harper overcame a speech impediment in his early 20s and hasn't stopped talking since. His lips must get tired before his legs do for all the work they get. On Sunday, Harper filled every break in the action with chatter.

He spoke to the officials during some lulls, politicking on behalf of his teammate, O'Neal, whom Harper said, ``is getting pulled on all the time'' by the Kings' Vlade Divac, Chris Webber and Scot Pollard.

O'Neal shot 33 free throws, 17 more than than any King tried, so one can assume Harper was heard.

When he wasn't pleading with the officials, Harper was in his teammates' faces. He told Kobe Bryant more than once to stop hurrying the offense, and when Robert Horry committed a silly foul on Webber in the waning minutes of the second quarter, Harper harped to him, saving Jackson a little breath.

``We have some players who tend to get overanxious,'' Harper said, stressing the last word. ``Sometimes, they try to score too soon. I've got guys who tend to shoot too fast. My job is to try to calm them down.''

Because the Kings had outrebounded the Lakers in their lone victory in four regular-season meetings, Harper decided it was also his job to go hard to the glass. He grabbed six offensive rebounds, and with every one of them he effectively stalled the Kings' patented fast break.

Asked when was the last time he collected so many offensive boards, Harper laughed. ``In the eighth grade,'' he said.

When Harper was in the eighth grade, Kings point guard Jason Williams was in the womb. Despite the lower mileage on his legs, Williams, 23, had a heck of a time keeping up with ``Old Head,'' as Bryant affectionately calls Harper.

``He has all the basketball skills,'' Harper said of Williams. ``I used my old head on him.'' The Lakers used to be like Williams, who has more skill than he sometimes can manage. Harper's job, as he sees it, is to show them the way.

So far, so good.