Lakers Come Back, Build Win on Gilmore’s Bricks

The fans here are now forced to take their Spurs straight, no Ice. In a game that had no Gervin or Earvin, the Lakers swallowed hard and won their season-opener over San Antonio, 121-116, Saturday night in two overtimes at HemisFair Arena.

With George (Ice) Gervin in Chicago with the Bulls and Earvin (Magic) Johnson in Los Angeles with the shingles, the Lakers got away with a win, thanks in a large way to the Spurs’ 7-foot 2-inch Artis Gilmore, who somehow managed to shank four consecutive free throws late in the first overtime.

If Gilmore, a career 72% free throw shooter, had made any one of those four, the Spurs would have pulled this one out and shocked the lizard boots off 10,875 fans, who are still not sold about their team or the trade that sent Gervin to the Bulls.

Gilmore tried hard to explain what went wrong with his shooting.

“I just couldn’t find the rhythm on those free throws,” he said. “I had no follow through.”

That was left for the Lakers to find, which they did late. Laker Coach Pat Riley, more interested in how his team came back from a 12-point deficit early in the fourth quarter, was not very sympathetic about Gilmore’s loss of rhythm.

“That’s the way it goes,” Riley said.

The Lakers’ first game of the season went pretty much as you might have expected without Johnson’s hand in the offense. Michael Cooper played a marathon 55 minutes and passed around 15 assists, which more than compensated for his seven turnovers.

There were 24 Laker turnovers in all, but they didn’t prevent the Lakers from coming up with a series of big plays at the end of regulation and the first overtime.

James Worthy, who led the Lakers with 24 points, scored on an inside move with 20 seconds left to send the game into the first extra period. Worthy’s hoop climaxed a furious Laker comeback from a 102-96 hole in the final 1:36 of the fourth quarter.

Gilmore blew the Spurs’ chance to win in overtime No. 1 with his 0-for-4 at the free throw line. San Antonio’s two-point lead might have been an unbeatable six points if Gilmore had made all four, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (20 points) quickly tied the game at 109-109 with 1:23 left.

Marc Iavaroni gave the Spurs another lead, but then he fouled Cooper, who made both of his free throws to tie the game again with 28 seconds left, although the second one rattled dangerously through the hoop.

“I’m just glad I made it,” said Cooper, who then dedicated the victory to the absent Laker. “This one’s for Magic, baby.”

By the time of Cooper’s free throws, though, Gilmore had fouled out. And as it turned out, San Antonio’s last, best chance at winning burned out, too, when Abdul-Jabbar, playing aggressively with five fouls, stole a pass by Wes Matthews with seven seconds left.

Maurice Lucas missed a 17-footer at the end of the second overtime but he would be heard from later.

After that, the Lakers finally established control of the game. Scott, whose three-point play highlighted the Lakers’ fourth-quarter closing rush, began the second overtime with a jumper and Abdul-Jabbar followed with a slam dunk.

Lucas socked the game away with two rebound baskets in the last two minutes and the Lakers managed to start the season in the right way when it seemed for so long that they weren’t going to do it.

“We dodged the bullet,” said Riley. “We were fortunate to win.”

It’s hard to judge the Lakers when Johnson is absent from the lineup, but they didn’t do much to shake the notion that they’re not a good outside shooting team. Chances are they will be plagued by that, even when Johnson gets back. But there is also every indication they’re going to be a better rebounding team now that Lucas is one of them.

In 30 minutes, Lucas had 10 rebounds and even scored 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting. But as a team, the Lakers shot just 49.5% against a completely revamped Spur team, one-third of which wasn’t even here until last week.

Spurs management was so worried about a negative reaction from the crowd that Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons was not introduced before the game to spare him boos. He got them anyway, just by walking on the court.

“I can take the heat,” said Fitzsimmons.

Here’s why the temperature is rising. There are only three Spurs players around who began the season here last season.

Since point guard Johnny Moore is an unsigned free agent, Fitzsimmons was forced to use the widely traveled Matthews for 43 minutes, which he used to total 12 assists, but also six costly turnovers.

“I got winded down the stretch,” said Matthews. “Those turnovers really hurt us.”

Mike Mitchell, who is the Spurs offense now that the Ice age has ended, scored 23 points, but he made only 11 of 25 shots.

David Greenwood is the player the Spurs got in the trade for Gervin and he was surprised he wasn’t booed. He was also a little surprised his new teammates hung as tough as they did.

“We could have folded and said ‘Oh, well, it’s expected of us,”’ Greenwood said. “But we were still there until the end.”

So was Cooper, who couldn’t remember playing 55 minutes in any game that wasn’t on the playgrounds.

“It was like running a marathon,” Cooper said. “I hit the runner’s wall, but I pushed through it.”

And in the end, the Lakers finished fast. The Spurs were a close second, but too bad for them, they were running a two-team race.

Laker Notes

Magic Johnson, sidelined with a case of shingles, was reported to be slightly improved Saturday. Johnson had been told it was all right for him to work on his conditioning, so he put in some time running on the streets of the neighborhood near his Bel-Air home. The Lakers don’t expect Johnson to be able to play again until at least Friday night in Phoenix and he could be out until the Laker home opener Nov. 5 against Cleveland . . . Spurs rookie Tyrone Corbin, who has a sprained right knee, was not in uniform for the game. . . . The Spurs are one of only two teams Pat Riley has a losing record against in regular-season play. He’s 9-11 against San Antonio and 3-5 against Philadelphia.