Lakers Bury Suns With a Little Help From an Old Friend

Lakers, who have been doing pretty well without Magic Johnson, did even better with him Thursday night.

They handed the Phoenix Suns their worst home defeat in team history, a 144-107 crushing at Veterans Coliseum. It was the Lakers’ biggest margin of victory over the Suns and the most points they’ve ever scored against the Phoenix team.

All in all, it was a great evening to play a laugher. And Johnson picked a wonderful time to return to the lineup after missing two games because of shingles.

The Lakers were 2-0 without Johnson and are 1-0 with him, so Coach Pat Riley said he knew exactly what having Johnson back meant to his team.

“More depth,” Riley joked. “He fills out the roster. Now we’ve got 12 players.”

Johnson played just 22 minutes, which was long enough for him to get 12 assists, but the Lakers didn’t need him to work any longer.

This one got out of hand in the second quarter, and that meant what was probably the earliest recorded beginning of garbage time in years.

Up by 19 points at the half, the Lakers were leading, 97-68, midway through the third quarter when Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar both signaled to Riley at the same time that they wanted out.

Many in the crowd of 11,661 knew the feeling. By the time the game ended, the stands were nearly empty. There was a reason for that.

Twice the Laker lead reached 40 points, which meant that only two interesting things happened in the second half.

One was that Chuck Nevitt got to play eight minutes. The other was that Maurice Lucas got into yet another confrontation on the court.

Lucas and the Suns’ Charles Pittman had to be separated after they bumped each other and then exchanged a few choice words beneath the basket. No blows were struck, but both players received technical fouls.

Afterward, Lucas said that Pittman still has a lot to learn.

“I’m the King of Pain,” Lucas said. “He’s only the King of Pain Jr. and I needed to remind him of that.”

Nobody needs to remind the Suns of what happened to them. The Lakers got 31 points from Byron Scott, 16 of them in the third quarter, to lead the Laker starters. And when the Laker reserves took over, they really took over.

Using his time wisely, Mike McGee played 23 minutes and scored 20 points. Three other non-starters scored in double figures, while Michael Cooper, the player Johnson replaced at point guard, had 15 assists.

Actually, Cooper leads the league in assists with an average of 13.7, but now that Johnson’s back, he knows his lead won’t last very much longer.

“He’s still got to catch up to me, but I know sooner or later that it’ll all be down the drain,” Cooper said.

Johnson’s return to the Lakers was a bit of a surprise. He telephoned Riley late Wednesday night and told him he was coming, but Riley didn’t want to let Phoenix Coach John MacLeod know about it, so he kept the word to himself.

Johnson, whose face still showed the effects of shingles, did not enjoy being left at home, so he got back as soon as a Laker team doctor in Los Angeles gave him the green light.

“This is what I live for,” Johnson said. “It was so hard to sit there and watch those guys on television. I was dying. I was a referee, a cheerleader and a coach, all at once. Now, I’m just a point guard again.”

Johnson called Cooper when the Lakers were in San Antonio and Dallas, and he also spoke on the telephone with Mitch Kupchak and Kurt Rambis.

“I could tell by the sound of his voice that he really wanted to be with us,” Cooper said.

The Suns weren’t sure the outcome would have been any different if Johnson had stayed home.

“They kicked us, they flat-out drove us, they thrashed us,” said MacLeod. “They’re the best team in the league, and I don’t care what Boston does.”

Larry Nance scored 23 points for the Suns, who shot only 41%, did little right. Lucas, a Sun for the last three seasons, said he did not feel badly for his former teammates.

“No sympathy, no compassion and no quarter, either,” he said. “I’m enjoying myself immensely.”