BIG CROWD'S CHEERS WEREN'T FOR DODGERS ARIZONA 6, DODGERS 3.

Byline: Brian Dohn Staff Writer

Shaquille O'Neal hit a reverse layup and the season-high crowd of 54,252 erupted. Kobe Bryant stepped to the foul line with 19.8 seconds remaining and the chants of ``Kobe, Kobe.'' engulfed the stadium.

Those same chants started anew when Bryant calmly sank two more free throws with 11.8 seconds left, but the biggest ovation came when Mike Bibby missed a shot and Robert Horry snatched the game-clinching rebound.

The folks at Dodger Stadium cared about something Friday night and it wasn't that the Dodgers were falling to Randy Johnson and the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks 6-3 in the opener of a three-game series.

Their attention, transfixed on portable televisions and radios throughout the ballpark, was aimed solely on whether the Lakers would force a Game 7 against Sacramento in the NBA Western Conference finals. The Lakers prevailed.

The Dodgers, after a three-game sweep of Milwaukee, did not. The reaction of the fans also didn't sit particularly well with all the Dodgers.

``What have you done for me lately?'' said catcher Paul Lo Duca, who went 0 for 4 on a night the Dodgers immortalized him with a bobble-head doll. ``When we start winning, maybe they'll start chanting Shawn Green's name at the Laker games. I understand. It's a big game for this town, the Lakers won, so I'm sure they'll be a lot of people here Sunday, too. Maybe they'll be chanting Shaq's name Sunday.''

How little did the fans care about the Dodgers? With one out in the ninth and the Dodgers needing baserunners to chip into a three-run deficit, the crowd let out an enormous cheer just as Arizona closer Byung-Hyun Kim released an 0-2 pitch to Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros. It was the reaction to Bibby's missed shot and Horry's rebound.

Karros took the pitch for a called third strike.

Asked whether he heard the cheering, or chanting of Bryant's name, Karros smiled and said, ``Was he here?''

Of course, the crowd might have had reason to channel most of their energy into a game being played a few miles down the Harbor Freeway: the first poor outing from left-hander Omar Daal this season.

Daal, who desperately wants into someone's starting rotation, has that chance with the Dodgers because of Kevin Brown's elbow injury. He was masterful in short relief and long relief, and nearly perfect in two previous starts.

However, he was victimized by a few soft singles and a bases-loaded double by Greg Colbrunn. He had allowed four earned runs in 17 games and 41 innings, but Daal (4-1) yielded six earned runs on 10 hits in six innings. His ERA jumped from 0.88 to 1.91.

It was plenty of support for Johnson, who rebounded from a dismal start Sunday against the Dodgers - he allowed seven runs on eight hits in five innings but wasn't involved in the decision - to improve to 5-0 at Dodger Stadium.

While Johnson (9-1) was again dominating, he wasn't his overpowering self. He allowed six hits and three unearned runs - all on Marquis Grissom's homer in the seventh inning - in eight innings. His four strikeouts were his fewest since May 23, 2001, when he struck out four against San Francisco. Johnson also incorporated 15 to 20 split-finger fastballs.