Without Bowie, Trail Blazers Can’t Cut It

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played just one minute in the second half Saturday night, which was one minute more than Sam Bowie played the entire game.

The Lakers didn’t need Abdul-Jabbar, but the Trail Blazers surely missed Bowie, whose absence helped the Lakers pin a 130-113 defeat on them.

While Bowie sat out the game with a sore toe, the Lakers bounced back from a road loss in Denver to trounce the Trail Blazers for the second time in two meetings this season.

Abdul-Jabbar scored 17 points in 18 minutes, but the Lakers also got 25 points in 28 minutes from James Worthy. That wasn’t as much of a surprise as what they got from none other than Kurt Rambis.

Usually the odd man out in the Laker offense, Rambis scored a season-high 17 points to go along with 12 rebounds and the Lakers won in a rout.

Terry Porter led Portland with 23 points, but most of them came after the game was decided.

The Lakers led, 66-42, at the half and increased their margin to 99-74 going into the fourth quarter.

The Trail Blazers didn’t have either Bowie or Clyde Drexler healthy enough to play and the effect of their absence showed up immediately.

Without Bowie, there wasn’t anyone to stop Abdul-Jabbar and Worthy on their post-up plays, so it wasn’t totally unexpected that the Lakers got the ball to them as often as they could.

By the end of the first half, Worthy had raked Kiki Vandeweghe for 19 points, Abdul-Jabbar had scored 15 over the shorter Mychal Thompson and the Lakers were up by 24 points.

Rambis also had some room to work inside and produced nine rebounds in the first half.

When Michael Cooper got loose on a breakaway, the Lakers led 34-14 in the first quarter. But rookie point guard Porter helped a Trail Blazer lineup, composed mostly of substitutes, come back when the Laker reserves faltered slightly.

The Lakers did not score a field goal in the second quarter until Abdul-Jabbar’s jumper at 7:17, which put the Lakers ahead by 12 points.

Then it was the Trail Blazers’ turn to go cold. They scored only one basket in just over four minutes and the Lakers were up by 16.

Thompson’s three-point play, when Abdul-Jabbar picked up his third foul, brought Portland to within 48-37 with 3:54 left, but the Lakers closed out the half on an 18-5 streak to lead, 66-42, going into the third quarter.

Johnson, who had 13 of his 14 assists in the first half, led the Laker fast break that accounted for 13 points in the final two minutes of the half, ending in a three-point shot by Mike McGee at the buzzer.