Champion Lakers Get Close Win Over Spurs

Even if the Lakers had lost Friday night, which they almost did, it’s highly unlikely anyone would have said they backed into their fourth consecutive Pacific Division championship.

After all, the Lakers’ 115-114 victory over San Antonio at the Forum, combined with a Phoenix loss at Chicago, extended their lead to 17 1/2 games over the Suns and Portland with only 16 games remaining in the regular season.

That’s a convincing enough margin, even if the same can’t be said for the Lakers’ win over the Spurs.

The Lakers have become accustomed to scoring early knockouts, winning their previous five games in this six-game winning streak by an average of more than 20 points.

But this victory, the Lakers’ 22nd in their last 26 games, wasn’t determined until the closing seconds, when the Spurs missed two shots at winning the game.

Guard Johnny Moore missed the first from 20 feet, but forward Gene Banks retrieved the rebound--his 12th of the game--and passed to guard George Gervin, who missed from just outside the three-point line as time ran out.

There was a collective sigh of relief from most of the crowd of 16,130.

No one would have been surprised if Gervin had made the shot, even though it was out of his range. After all, he had made 16 of his previous 21 shots Friday night and had scored 37 points.

The Lakers’ leading scorer was James Worthy, playing with a pair of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s spare goggles to protect a minor eye injury suffered Wednesday night.

His vision wasn’t affected as he made 11 of 17 shots from the field and finished with 25 points. He also led the Lakers in rebounding with seven.

But perhaps his most significant contribution to the victory was on defense, specifically the fourth-quarter turnover he caused that turned momentum in the Lakers’ favor.

After trailing by nine in the third quarter, the Lakers were within four of the Spurs with less than five minutes remaining, when Worthy found himself on Gervin.

That’s a mismatch, but Worthy dug in and began swatting at the ball. Somehow, he got a hand on it, knocked it away from Gervin and then pounced on it.

“It was a foul,” San Antonio Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons said.

The referees called it a jump ball.

Worthy controlled the tip, which resulted in two free throws by Laker forward Bob McAdoo that cut the Spurs’ lead to two.

Then, McAdoo stole the ball at the other end from San Antonio forward Mike Mitchell to start a fastbreak that resulted in a three-point play by Michael Cooper and the Lakers’ first lead since the second quarter.

The Laker defense tightened the noose, not allowing the Spurs a shot within the required 24 seconds on their next possession. McAdoo scored again after that for the Lakers’ seventh straight point and a three-point lead. The Spurs didn’t have an opportunity to regain the lead until the final seconds.

“James’ play lifted the team, and it lifted the crowd,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said. “We were down, but we had a couple of players really getting after it at that time. When you get that kind of hustle . . . “

McAdoo said he could feel the level of intensity rise after Worthy’s defensive play.

He said the final minutes were “like a playoff game.”

The Lakers are headed toward the playoffs with their 10th division championship in the last 15 years.

In the last three seasons, the earliest they had clinched the championship was April 7. They beat that this season by three weeks, an indication that they are playing even better than they have in recent years.

But it’s also true that the rest of the division is playing worse, much worse. Only three years ago, the Pacific Division was the best from the first through the fourth teams in the National Basketball Assn. Now, with only one team over .500, it is being called the Pathetic Division.

The Lakers had no celebration planned following this game.

“We didn’t have a Pacific Division cake in the dressing room,” Riley said.

San Antonio is the fifth consecutive team with a losing record that the Lakers have played. But the Spurs didn’t play like a second-division team. They never do against the Lakers. Three of the last four games between the teams have been decided by one point.

“Everybody talks about Denver and Houston being our challengers in the Western Conference, but San Antonio matches up against us better than anybody,” McAdoo said.

“I think we should have won,” Fitzsimmons said. “I feel we outplayed the Lakers. But they did some good things at the end.”

That included shutting down Gervin for the last six minutes, when he scored only three points against the defense of Michael Cooper and Worthy.

“Ice was committed tonight,” Riley said. “When he’s like that, forget it. But he didn’t get a very good look at the basket in the last six minutes. In the last six minutes, that’s when your defense wins for you.”

Laker Notes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar injured the ring finger on his left hand, a possible sprain, in the fourth quarter but returned to play with two fingers taped together. . . . The Lakers play their next three games away from the Forum, beginning tonight against the Clippers at the Sports Arena. Of the Lakers’ remaining 16 games, 7 are at home. . . . Reserve center Chuck Nevitt signed his second 10-day contract. After this one expires, the Lakers must either sign him for the remainder of the season or release him.