Boston Again Puts the Arm (It’s McHale’s) on Lakers

No new ghosts blew down from the rafters of Boston Garden Wednesday night to beat the Lakers this time, just the long arm of Kevin McHale.

The Lakers lost to the Celtics, 104-102, when McHale’s six-foot turnaround jumper bounced through the basket with one second left. And so the dog-eared tradition of Celtic Pride lives on against the Lakers, who at the same time revived their own tradition left over from last season’s championship series.

Celtic Pride and Laker Slide. The Lakers just can’t seem to hold a lead, at least when they’re playing the Celtics.

Remember Game 2 of the final series last spring? The Lakers had the ball and a two-point lead with 20 seconds left, and lost.

Maybe you recall Game 4. The Lakers had a five-point lead with 57 seconds left, and lost.

With those facts in mind, here’s what happened to the Lakers this time. They had a 102-99 lead with 1:37 left, and didn’t score again.

And with 50 seconds left, the Lakers still had the ball and a three-point lead.

After that, it got ugly. First, you can blame Danny Ainge and Robert Parish. Ainge poked the ball away from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then Parish beat him down the court and dropped in an easy basket.

Then, you can blame Michael Cooper, who fouled Parish unnecessarily on the shot, allowing the Celtics to make it a three-point play that tied the game with 44 seconds remaining.

Cooper, meanwhile, blamed the referees.

“I don’t think I ever touched him,” Cooper said. “If I had known they were going to call a foul, I would have jumped on him (Parish).”

Laker Coach Pat Riley said Parish should have been conceded the basket.

“You don’t foul at that time,” he said. “You try to make sure that he doesn’t get the shot up, but you don’t just tap him on the arm.”

Then Riley took his turn and blamed the referees right back. After Parish’s three-point play, Magic Johnson was fouled on a drive and made the shot, but referee John Vanak said Johnson was not fouled in the act of shooting, so the basket did not count.

“If I’ve ever seen a continuation play, that was it,” Riley said.

The Lakers had three more shots at taking the lead after Vanak’s call, but Abdul-Jabbar missed a fallaway jumper, and Johnson missed two tips. Boston called time out with 14 seconds left, and Coach K. C. Jones drew the winning play.

Bird got the ball to the 6-10 McHale, who was guarded closely by Kurt Rambis. McHale spun to his right, held the ball high over his head and shot it off the glass into the hoop.

Jones said McHale was overdue because he had missed 9 of his other 12 shots.

“He had an awful night,” Jones said. “He owed us those two points at the end.”

And maybe down the line, the Lakers owe the Celtics something other than a last-second Boston victory.

“This is 1985,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “And 1984 is over. This time, we were close, but no cigar.”

By way of comparison to last season’s championship series, Wednesday night’s Laker loss isn’t nearly as important because this wasn’t the playoffs, even though it was treated as such.

“This game was really hyped,” Johnson said.

Abdul-Jabbar hooked and dunked to 33 points, got Parish in foul trouble and made 12 of 19 shots; Johnson finished with 13 assists, and Bird scored 19 points, although Cooper stifled him for most of the second half.

On the backboards, the Celtics won again, and that was ultimately where the game was decided. Boston outrebounded the Lakers, 46-39, and produced 16 offensive rebounds. Parish had 13 rebounds and Bird 11.

Rambis, who seems on the verge of getting his starting job back, had seven rebounds in 18 minutes to tie Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson for the team high.

The Lakers will arrive home today on a team low. They have lost four of their last six games, and they finished their four-game trip with a 1-3 record, losing to each of the Eastern Conference teams they played.

“We gotta get better,” Bob McAdoo said. “The East teams just play better than the West teams. It was like we just weren’t ready for this trip. And we got caught up again. We finessed, and they muscled.”

For the first time since they began the trip Friday night at Dallas, the Lakers played well enough to win. But in the final seconds, they played just badly enough to lose.

Johnson said the Lakers merely “came up short,” which is also the length he wished McHale’s arms were. Johnson said he very nearly tipped in Abdul-Jabbar’s jump shot with the score tied in the last minute.

“The first tip was the best one,” he said. “I had it up and over, and it hit the back of the rim. I knew I couldn’t do much with the second tip because McHale was there with those long arms.”

On the game-winning basket, Rambis was fronting McHale, but when he saw he had no help on the weak side, he quickly jumped behind McHale. “I was dead either way,” Rambis said.

Jones said McHale’s arms are useful tools, and he uses them to get offensive rebounds, to block shots and to put his own into the basket.

“It helps to be 6-10 and have that kind of arms,” Jones said. “He has got some kind of weapons with those long things.”

Abdul-Jabbar continued to be the chief Laker weapon, but he didn’t get much help. Byron Scott jump-shot his way to 16 points, but the only other Laker in double figures was James Worthy, who sank into foul trouble and scored just 10 points.

The Celtics collapsed defenders on Abdul-Jabbar and dared the Lakers to shoot from the outside, a tactic that only half-worked, but the half that worked won it.

“As soon as the ball hit my hands, there were three guys on me,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “I couldn’t do as much as I wanted.”

That’s the way it seems to go when the Lakers match up with the East. Riley took the loss particularly hard and kept the locker room doors closed longer than the customary 10 minutes after the game.

When he finally emerged, Riley made no effort to conceal his feelings.

“It’s just disappointing as hell not to come away with a win when the game is in your grasp,” he said.

That’s also the way it seems to go when the Lakers match up with Boston, and right now, the Lakers don’t feel very good about it.