The Net Result Is Another Impressive Win for Lakers

What does it take to beat the Lakers right now? Whatever it is, no one seems to have a clue.

The blowouts just keep happening for the Lakers, who cut down a good New Jersey Nets team, 138-119, Sunday night at the Forum for their sixth consecutive victory.

“You look up and then we’re gone,” said Magic Johnson. “We’re tough to beat right now.”

Whether they play good teams or bad, the Lakers are showing no preference for whom they blow out. Already, they’re 10-1 and they’re the highest-scoring team in the NBA.

The Lakers aren’t just beating people, they’re crushing them. The average margin of victory for the Lakers is more than 14 points.

New Jersey just happened to be the latest to find out.

“It was embarrassing,” Net forward Buck Williams said. “We were down by four points and then all of a sudden we were down by 15. The bottom just fell out.”

The Lakers have won games by 18, 19, 29, 31 and 37 points. Not only do they average 124.6 points a game, but they also lead the NBA in rebounding and the Lakers agree that is what is doing it for them.

“Once we kick the ball out and Magic gets to running and James Worthy starts running with him, there’s no telling what might happen,” Maurice Lucas said.

Blowouts, that’s what happens. And you know what that means. Chuck Nevitt. Red Auerbach has his cigar and the Lakers have their Nevitt.

He knew he would probably get a chance to play once the Lakers broke open the game, which is what they did the last six minutes of the first half. The Nets were never closer than 19 points after the first few minutes of the third quarter.

Otis Birdsong and Micheal Ray Richardson, New Jersey’s starting guards, kept the Nets close until then with their perimeter shooting. They combined for 20 points in the half, but only six the rest of the game, all by Birdsong.

The Nets were even with the Lakers at 46, they were outscored, 21-5, before the finish the half.

“After that, the game was basically over,” Net Coach Dave Wohl said.

Michael Cooper and A.C. Green did most of the damage during that streak. Cooper dropped a couple of three-pointers and blocked a shot that began a breakaway and ended with a three-point play by Green.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s three-point play gave the Lakers their biggest lead of the night, 96-65, which Nevitt interpreted as the signal he would get into the game.

“Really, the only time I get to play is when the game is already decided,” Nevitt said. “When its a blowout, I get a little jittery because I know I’m coming in, but I wouldn’t trade anything for it.”

Mike McGee led the Lakers with 26 points and matched Cooper with a pair of three-pointers. Magic finished with 21 points and 15 assists in 30 minutes while Darryl Dawkins came off the bench to score 19 points in 19 minutes for the Nets.

Not even the normally ebullient Dawkins found happiness in his point-a-minute production.

“It wasn’t any fun,” he said.

The Lakers are having plenty of it. They point to their rebounding as the principal source of their joy. Lucas, Mitch Kupchak and Green got together for 23 rebounds, and none of them are starters.

“We’re good, but we can get better,” Johnson said. “We’ve always scored a lot of points, but now we’re really rebounding well. That’s what makes us a very, very good basketball team.”

Johnson cautioned against making too much of the Lakers’ quick start. Last season at this time, the Lakers were only 5-6.

“Nobody wins nothing at the beginning,” he said. “Things can happen.”

The only things that are happening right now are good things. Even without Byron Scott, the Lakers are having everything go their way.

Just look at what happened during one sequence in the third quarter.

The Lakers led by 23 points. Worthy mistakenly threw a pass to Birdsong, but the ball bounced off Birdsong’s leg. Worthy dove on the floor and slapped the ball over to McGee who drove for a layup. Then when Birdsong got the ball, he tried to throw a pass, but it slipped and bounced off the backboard. McGee came right back with a three-pointer.

“You’ve got to come ready to play us,” McGee said. “You’d better know that we’ll be ready.”

Laker Notes For the last three seasons, the Nets’ new coach, Dave Wohl, was Pat Riley’s assistant, but Wohl said his perspective of the Lakers is a lot different now. “When I was here, we’d look at tapes and see a lot of little things we did wrong,” Wohl said. “Now that I’m coaching against them, I watch tapes of the Lakers and I don’t find any weaknesses. They don’t do anything wrong.” . . . Wohl said he’s getting closer to the lineup rotation that he wants, now that Albert King is back as a starter. King, who has played only five games since signing a new contract, moves Mike O’Koren to a sixth-man role. Mickey Johnson began the season with a hamstring pull, but he now backs up Buck Williams. Wohl prefers to start Mike Gminski, who missed almost all of training camp as an unsigned free agent, instead of Darryl Dawkins at center. “We want to prevent Darryl from picking up two or three quick fouls,” Wohl said. “The first things the referees saw was Darryl and contact.”