The Lakers’ Lamar Odom goes up for a layup during last night’s Game Four of the NBA Finals at the Staples Center.

AP / Mark Avery

LOS ANGELES — If anyone can sympathize with Lamar Odom’s struggles in the first three games of the NBA Finals, it’s Jerry DeGregorio.

Odom and DeGregorio are still attached at the hip, 10 years after the two arrived at the University of Rhode Island. Back then, they were player and coach. Now they are closer to brothers, as tight as two men could be.

After a Game Three win over the Celtics, Odom was dejected. He had scored only four points, battling foul trouble and the long reach of Kevin Garnett. He cleared his head by spending a few hours with DeGregorio Wednesday night.

“I told Lamar that this isn’t football. There are more games and more chances. If the Lakers win and Lamar plays well, he’ll be a hero out here,” he said.

When the ball was tipped last night at the Staples Center, DeGregorio had Odom’s back. He sits a few rows behind the Boston Celtics’ bench, a few seats away from baseball great Frank Robinson and Lakers super fan Penny Marshall of Laverne and Shirley fame.

“I wouldn’t miss these games for anything. I was in Boston, too,” said DeGregorio. “These are the biggest games of Lamar’s life.”

DeGregorio has been in Odom’s corner for a while now. The two met on the AAU scene when Odom was a teenager. When Odom struggled academically at Christ The King High in Queens, N.Y., he transferred to play for DeGregorio at St. Thomas Aquinas in New Britain, Conn. Odom lived with the coach, cementing a relationship that proved to be unbreakable.

DeGregorio became the man Odom trusted the most, the one who looked out for him when everyone else seemed to be trying to hustle their way into the budding basketball star’s world. He helped provide some sanity to an 18-year-old whose world that was too often spinning out of control.

When Odom ran into trouble the summer before he was set to enroll at UNLV, he called DeGregorio. He was a newly hired assistant coach under Jim Harrick at URI and helped orchestrate Odom’s arrival in Kingston.

After Harrick left URI for the University of Georgia and Odom bolted URI after one season, DeGregorio was given the chance to coach the Rams. He was fired after two disastrous seasons, but has stayed in the game and in Odom’s life. That talk with DeGregorio obviously had an impact. Odom came out last night and had his best quarter of the Finals, sinking all six shots from the floor en route to 13 points and helping the Lakers set an NBA-record 21-point lead, 35-14, after 12 minutes. He cooled off in the second quarter and finished the half with 15 points. He made only one basket in the disastrous (for the Lakers) second half and settled for 19 points overall.

But he clearly was a different player than earlier in the Finals. Odom says wants to wipe away the sloppy efforts and help Kobe Bryant and the Lakers win a championship. He knows he’ll have DeGregorio helping every step of the way.

kmcnamar@projo.com