ABC PUNCHES UP THE HYPE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

You better watch out. The Christmas Day collision between Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant has sent visions dancing in the fans' heads of the former sending the latter into the third row of Staples Center at some point during this special ABC holiday matinee.

How Indiana-Detroit-esque would that be?

An amused Al Michaels listened while O'Neal used his Corvette-hitting-a-brick-wall analogy during a taped ``Monday Night Football'' halftime interview that added to the network hype for the matchup between the Lakers and Miami Heat. But Michaels wanted to make it clear in an interview Wednesday that he senses O'Neal isn't making a fist and cocking it twice even though that sound bite continues to be replayed by TV outlets this week.

``The one thing that didn't air in that three-minute piece and became an outtake was that Shaq said he was concerned about the league, meaning the Detroit-Indiana game incident, and he did express this isn't a situation for any retaliation under any circumstances,'' said Michaels, who will do the play-by-play of the contest. ``He knows the big, whole broad picture. And reading how Kobe Bryant reacted to that quote, I think he knows it's just Shaq being colorful.''

Hubie Brown, the recently-departed Memphis Grizzlies coach who will leap back into the broadcast chair to join Michaels and courtside reporter Michelle Tafoya, knows from experience that O'Neal won't bully his way into a situation that will hurt his team, especially when he's trying to make a statement to the national viewing audience about his focus on winning an NBA title with new running mate Dwyane Wade.

``Both Kobe and Shaq will try to play to their maximum abilities and they want to excel, but the difference here is that Shaq is at the mercy of four other players to pass him the ball,'' Brown said. ``Kobe will have the ball 60 to 75 percent of the time and he'll attack the rim. Is he going to change his game? Absolutely not. Is he going to want to dunk over Shaq? Sure.

``Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore and Shaq are the three toughest players to play this game, but they are the three cleanest players up front. They have an inner self-discipline not to deliberately hurt anyone because they know they could give someone a lifetime injury.

``No matter how hard you foul them or triple-team them or knock them down, they play the game correctly. Shaq never retaliates. And if Kobe runs into him, it'll be like running into a building. The collisions will just be interpreted by how people see them.''

Collisions, and ensuing brawls, will continue to be interpreted and criticized in the aftermath of last month's Indiana-Detroit game - a rematch that will ironically serve as the undercard to Kobe-Shaq with ESPN's 9:30 a.m. coverage Saturday morning despite Detroit coach Larry Brown's public misgivings.

Recent TV ratings measurements indicate the public is a little punchdrunk when it comes to the NBA, with TNT and ESPN coverage down 12 and 7 percent, respectively, so far this season, even more so in the 18-to-34 men demographic. Whether that's a clear indication viewers have soured on the league in the weeks after the major melee, even with no NHL alternative programming, remains to be seen.

A healthy rating for Saturday's doubleheader could prove to be a turning point in the healing process and will be worth re-assessing when TNT airs the Lakers-Heat rematch on March 17 in Miami.

Some predict an NBA Finals-like 10.0 Neilsen rating for the Lakers-Heat contest Saturday - but the network avoided putting it on in prime time for the East Coast, likely because of the competing NFL games. It should easily double the 4.1 rating/9 share the Lakers and Houston got for last year's Christmas Day game. Over the past five Christmas Day network doubleheaders, NBC and ABC have seen an average rating of 3.8 per game. This is the first time the Christmas Day doubleheader has been split between a network and its cable partner.

Larry Brown's caustic comments this week on an episode of ESPN's ``Pardon The Interruption,'' where he said it ``makes me sick'' that the league is showcasing his team's home game against Indiana, when both are 12-11 and coming off the ugly brawl, is another indication the league continues to be in damage control.

But then, comments by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban prove it's every man for himself when it comes to reducing Shaq-vs.-Kobe to a WWE cage match on Santa Claus' big day.

``I love it,'' Cuban told the Dallas Morning News when asked about O'Neal's ``MNF'' interview. ``I want to see the Corvette hit the wall. Story lines are good. There's a reason why people like to watch cars go around in circles. And it's not because they like watching cars going around in circles.''

--More corporate hype: While ABC promotes the Lakers-Heat game during prime-time viewing with pop-up reminders and ``Desperate Housewives'' spots, ESPN will have reporters Colleen Dominguez and Shelley Smith on hand for everything from O'Neal's gift-buying spree for inner city children before Saturday's contest to the postgame locker room interviews.

The last of a five-part ``SportsCenter'' series attempting to dissect the Lakers past and present aired Thursday, with notable Kobe toadie Jim Gray conspicuously absent from the whole thing. Sources say Gray did an extensive sit-down with Bryant recently, but none of it was used in the ESPN series because producers determined Gray's soft questioning didn't produce any noteworthy responses.

--``A Lump of Coal'' Porter: In the past, Shaq has complained about having to work on Christmas Day - this will be the sixth consecutive Dec. 25 appearance the Lakers have made in a nationally televised game, all at home, and the Heat is their sixth different opponent.

While his rumblings this time have been more toward helping to market the game rather than distract from it, perhaps the Oakland Raiders' Jerry Porter has picked up the baton.

On a Sporting News radio show last weekend, Porter said it (with the key words bleeped out) about his team having to play at Kansas City on Saturday afternoon on CBS: ``My daughter really appreciates that her dad has to be away on Christmas. Thank you, NFL. This is bull(bleep). This is bull(bleep). You are going to take us away from our family on Christmas day and make us play on a Saturday? That's bull.

``Then, the fact the Lakers are playing the Heat, no one is even going to watch our game.''

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES --Too many major credibility issues the past few years finally forced the Associated Press to disassociate itself from the Bowl Championship Series. The latest - having some of media members who vote called out for mysteriously changing their ranking of Cal and Texas in the last week of the season, which rearranged the Rose Bowl pairings and resulted in millions of dollars changing conferences - showed how this once innocent form of entertainment has turned into a scandalous endeavor ripe for abuse and mistrust. One newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, already announced it wouldn't participate in the AP voting after the Cal-Texas vote lobbying put upon its poll selector, and others were bound to follow suit. A news-gathering organization can never be part of creating the news. The next step has to be for ESPN and USA Today to discontinue sponsorship of the clandestine coaches poll, or else questions of credibility will continue to hover over both of those organizations.

WHAT CHOKES --After a merry-go-round search to find a credible former Dodgers player who could serve as a TV analyst willing to work 50-odd road games a season, several sources indicate the Dodgers appear ready to give up and hand the job over to Steve Lyons, who has been doing Fox national and regional games for the past few years as well as TV for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Lyons has no connection to the team either as a player or broadcaster, except for the fact he was suspended by Fox last season after insensitive comments he made concerning Shawn Green sitting out a game in October in observance of Yom Kippur. Lyons also has a pending sexual assault and battery charge case coming up next month in L.A. Superior Court from a woman who filed a suit after an incident in Maui in 2002. If the Dodgers do use Lyons, sources say it will have to be for more than the $1,000 a game that the team was reportedly trying to pay someone like Steve Sax or Eric Karros. The plan also is to find a full-time radio analyst - with Al Downing the prime candidate - to work with both Charley Steiner and Rick Monday.

By Tom Hoffarth

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