Howard Beck: Karl Malone was hurt. Everybody ignores this part of it. He only played in four of the five games. He averaged 31 minutes in that series. He missed a lot of the regular season because of a freak accident where Scott Williams fell into him and hurt his knee. Malone was the guy holding Shaq and Kobe and holding the team together and keeping Shaq and Kobe from beating the heck out of each other early that season.