By John Nadel
The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Karl Malone sat bare-chested in front of his locker, a towel around his waist, his right knee wrapped in ice, a frown on his face. It was all his fault.

Or so he had said - to wave after wave of reporters.

"I expect more out of me, I really do," Malone said quietly following his sub-par performance in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night. "I didn't make shots. I didn't set screens. I played like a first- or second-year player in the league."

He wasn't the only one.

The heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers were reduced to a two-man team on offense, and lost decisively because of that.

Shaquille O'Neal scored 34 points and Kobe Bryant added 25, but their teammates combined for only 16 in an 87-75 loss to the Detroit Pistons.

O'Neal was almost impossible to defend, shooting 13-of-16 from the field, and he was exceptional at the free-throw line - at least for him - going 8-of-12.

"Absolutely," Malone said with a small smile when asked whether O'Neal should have gotten the ball more so he could have shot more.

Bryant shot 10-of-27, which is below his usual standard, but that was far better than the rest of the Lakers, who combined to go a miserable 6-of-30.

Malone and Gary Payton, who joined the Lakers last summer in search of their first championship rings, did next to nothing offensively.

Malone shot 2-of-9 and had four points to go with 11 rebounds. Payton was 1-of-4 for three points and picked up his fifth foul with 31/2 minutes to play in the third quarter, putting him on the bench until the outcome had been decided.

"Four points is terrible," Malone said. "I have to make those shots. I give Detroit credit. They did what they're supposed to do. I look at all the things I didn't do - I could fill a highlight reel."

Or was that a lowlight reel?

"We're not expecting that for the rest of the series," Detroit's Rasheed Wallace said of Malone's performance. "He didn't score 32,000 points for nothing."

Actually, that's 36,928 points in 19 seasons - the first 18 with the Utah Jazz, where Malone reached the NBA Finals twice, but came up empty.

Malone is the second-leading scorer in league history, behind former Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Payton, who reached the finals once in 13 previous seasons - almost all with the Seattle SuperSonics - didn't stick around to speak with reporters after his ugly performance.

Derek Fisher often picked up the slack in the championship seasons of 2000-2002 as well as these playoffs. But he didn't do the job this time, shooting 1-of-9 for two points.

Kareem Rush, the hero of the Lakers' clinching victory over Minnesota in the Western Conference finals by making six straight 3-pointers, went scoreless, missing his three shots.

And so it went.

"They were quicker to the ball than we were," Fisher said. "They outplayed us tonight. It happens.

"Defensively, we did OK. Offensively, we were not even close."

The Lakers, 9-0 at home in the playoffs before Sunday night, were supposed to tear up the Eastern Conference representative.

They sure didn't in Game 1.

"I don't know what everybody else expected," Fisher said. "They're in the finals."

Perhaps the Lakers hadn't seen a defense like this one while making their way through the offensive-minded West.

O'Neal and Bryant scored 20 straight points for Los Angeles before Malone's layup with 2:40 left cut Detroit's lead to 79-72. But the Lakers would get no closer down the stretch.

Payton scored his only points on a 3-pointer early in the third quarter. Malone finally scored with 4:25 left in the period after missing his first six shots, making a layup to cut Detroit's lead to six points.