Notebook : White House Is Next Stop for the Lakers

The Lakers will fly to Washington this morning for a 15-minute ceremony at the White House. President Ronald Reagan will be presented a Laker jersey by the team.

It’ll have to be a quick trip, since the Lakers are scheduled to be in a L.A. victory parade on Tuesday at 11 a.m. The parade route will start at 9th and Broadway and end at City Hall. After that, there will be a victory rally in the Forum parking lot.

The Lakers earned $455,000 for winning the championship series. The Celtics made $405,000. Divided into 12 equal shares, each Laker would get $37,900, while each Celtic would get $33,750.

It wasn’t a good week for Celtic President Red Auerbach. He had his pocket picked at the Forum after one of the earlier playoff games.

Jerry phoned Jerry immediately after the game. That’s Jerry Buss, Laker owner, to Jerry West, Laker general manager.

West watched the game from his home in Bel-Air. He was too nervous, and too superstitious, to make the trip to Boston.

In fact, the cable feed on West’s color TV went on the blink in the first half, so he switched to a black-and-white TV. When the cable feed came back on on the second half, West kept the black-and-white on anyway, because that’s the TV set on which the Lakers took the lead.

He watched the second half on both sets.

The Lakers’ Michael Cooper went down with what appeared to be a serious injury after colliding with Kevin McHale with 1:56 left in the third quarter. Cooper was carried off to the locker room by teammates Larry Spriggs and Mike McGee.

But it turned out to be only a bruised knee. As soon as the pain subsided, Cooper walked back out to the Laker bench. He went back into the game with 10:49 left to play. Cooper ended up with nine points in 30 minutes.

As the Lakers ran off the court after the game and sprinted to their dressing room, each player was high-fived by M.L. Carr.

The Laker dressing room was visited by Robert Parish, Cedric Maxwell, Ray Williams, Greg Kite, Quinn Buckner, Dennis Johnson and Kevin McHale. No Larry Bird.

Famous last words, from Gerald Henderson, former Celtic, quoted in the Sunday Boston Herald: “I just know that any time it’s a Laker-Celtic game and it gets down close, the Lakers can just kiss it goodby.”

For most Celtic games at the Garden, there are 60 uniformed security cops stationed inside the arena. On Sunday, there were 230. Unfortunately for the Celtics, none of them was guarding Kareem.

The Lakers led, 97-90, with 4:23 left when Magic drove the lane and tossed up a layup. It hung on the rim for about a full second before dropping in, killing the Celtics.

“I put the Magic touch on it,” Magic explained.

Ungracious to the end, some Celtic fans waited near the players’ exit and shouted at the Lakers.

Like when Kurt Rambis walked out.

“Igna-Rambis!” one fan shouted.

Another called out, “Hey, Kurt, how come it took you eight times to do it?”

Rambis, who had two bottles of champagne packed in his equipment bag, just smiled.

Actor Jack Nicholson, after celebrating in the Laker locker room, came in to offer his condolences in the Boston locker room.

“You played great today,” Celtic guard Dennis Johnson told him.

“We’ll be back here next year but you guys have got to watch out for Patrick Ewing,” Nicholson told the Celtics within earshot.

Boston play-by-play announcer Johnny Most knew it wasn’t going to be a great day when he went out to his car in the morning and found a hole in one window and a rock on the front seat.

Before the game, vendors in front of Boston Garden were getting $10 each for green shirts that read, “Celtics, back-to-back champs.”

A few hours later, they were getting considerably less.

Laker Coach Pat Riley is no fan of the upper rafters of Boston Garden where the Celtic banners and the ghosts of championships past reportedly live.

“We don’t need to hang a banner or all of that stuff,” Riley said. “We’ll put up a banner that says we’re world champions but we prefer to let our ghosts go on leading their own lives.”

Laker owner Jerry Buss said he was relieved that the Lakers would never again have to hear the question, “When are you guys ever going to beat Boston?”

“This puts an end to one of the most odious questions in the history of sports,” Buss said.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was glad to receive the Most Valuable Player award, which he also won in 1971 with the Milwaukee Bucks.

“It’ll be nice to have forever,” he said. “I’ll put it in my back pocket.”

Since the trophy is more than two-feet tall, Abdul-Jabbar was asked how it could possibly fit inside his pocket.

“I’ll just get a very big pocket,” he said.

Besides the ritual dousing with champagne, each Laker player carried around cigars, although no one lit his up.

Pat Riley said the Laker victory means something to all the past Lakers, too.

“This one’s for Jerry West, Bill Sharman, Elgin Baylor, Frank Selvy and everybody else who’s had a hard time living with this dynasty stuff,” Riley said.

The Celtics’ defeat in the championship series was their first since they lost in six games to the St. Louis Hawks in 1958. Their record in the final series is 15-2.