ANGELS NOTEBOOK: BEST BET: DON'T FRET PARKER.

Byline: Howard Beck Staff Writer

EL SEGUNDO - In two games, Tony Parker has diced up the Lakers defense with the skill and precision of a French chef chopping onions to make quiche. It's a lousy diet for a team trying to stave off elimination, and coach Phil Jackson might just concede this particular battle to the San Antonio Spurs.

While averaging 25 points on 50 percent shooting, Parker also has thrown the jumpy Lakers out of whack, to the point where Jackson believes the best philosophy on stopping the zippy young guard is to stop trying.

``We may not be able to do that,'' Jackson said Thursday. ``We may just have to take what we can get against Tony and not get all flustered about whether we have to stop him or that we have to jump all over him on screen-rolls or anything else.

``He's going to have some games. He's going to control the ball and shoot the ball a lot. He's going to have numbers. And we just have to accept that and we play around it. We've had games in which (Tim) Duncan scored 40 points and we've still won ballgames. You have to live around those things. This is a good basketball club, they've got some good players, you have to concede what they do well.''

It's been suggested that the Lakers should make Parker pay for his drives in the lane with a body check or two. That strategy probably wouldn't do much for French-American relations, however, and Jackson seemed skeptical that a policy of ``Freedom Fouls'' could win the war.

``Ooh-la-la, Tony? No, we wouldn't want to do that,'' Jackson said. ``We don't want to be physical with this team. We don't want to appear to bully this team because I think that's playing into their hands.''

It's possible the Lakers will try to trap Parker more often, but Rick Fox agreed that simply pounding him won't work.

--Chatter: The Lakers have avoided any public discussion of the Kobe Bryant critique delivered by Shaquille O'Neal's stepfather. But Jackson was curious enough about its possible impact that he raised the issue during Thursday's film session.

``I directly asked them that question this morning, in fact, because (TNT commentators) were making a big deal of it on the broadcast,'' Jackson said.

``People don't understand, we don't make a big deal of those things. There's going to be a lot of talk and a lot of smoke during the course of a series, and you have to let that roll off and you have to just play on.''

Jackson concluded the comments had no effect on his team, nor on Bryant, who scored just 15 points in Wednesday night's loss.

--Pain: Slava Medvedenko's strained Achilles' tendon remains a concern, Jackson said.

Medvedenko has logged only 16 minutes in two games but stands to benefit from the three-day break before Game 3.

Gary Payton, who has had trouble with both Achilles' tendons and a lower back strain, took treatment Thursday.