Lakers Turn On Defense, Turn Back Mavericks, 125-119

About the only thing wrong with the Laker defense these days is that you never really know when it’s going to show up. It made a late arrival against the Dallas Mavericks Sunday night, and just in time.

The Lakers gave up 41 points in the third quarter. Then they gave up 14 points in the fourth quarter. This is all so confusing, even to some of the players.

“We don’t do it consciously,” Maurice Lucas said. “We can’t continue to get in that situation because at some point the odds are going to change against us.”

That time has not yet arrived. The Lakers proved once again they can turn it off and turn it on with the best of them when they came from eight points down in the fourth quarter to defeat the Mavericks, 125-119, at the Forum.

So after 20 games, the Lakers have won 18 of them. They’ve won seven straight. They’ve also struggled for most of them. This one was no different.

For some reason, the Lakers don’t seem to decide to slam the door on somebody’s fingers until they are in danger of losing. Coach Pat Riley finds this a baffling tendency.

“We’ve always been the kind of team that, when it counts the most, we know it’s time to win,” he said. “We always think we can always pull it out, but some nights we aren’t going to and we are going to lose.

“I’m sure that’s going to happen,” Riley said. “Then I can really get on their behinds. You just can’t do that when you win.”

You try to figure out what’s happening. Choose one of the following.

The Laker defense is awful: The 41 points they allowed to Dallas in the third quarter was their second-worst defensive quarter of the season. Houston scored 43 points in one quarter Friday night

The Laker defense is terrific: The 14 points they gave up in the fourth quarter was their best defensive quarter of the season.

There’s no real discrepancy in fact here, according to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

“We are a good defensive team,” he said.

Not for a whole game they aren’t. The Mavericks who played at home Saturday night and should have been tired from traveling, were quickly revived and shot themselves silly for three quarters.

With Mark Aguirre’s 32 points leading the way, the Mavericks held a 108-100 lead two minutes deep into he fourth quarter.

It was about that time that Riley went to what he calls his quick lineup that paired A. C. Green with James Worthy and suddenly, the defense clicked.

Byron Scott, who scored 12 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter, followed a basket by Lucas with a three-point play which trimmed the Mavericks’ lead to 108-105.

The game may have turned on the next play. Jay Vincent missed a jumper and wound up shooting an airball when Green knocked him to the floor. But no foul was called.

Lucas relayed the rebound to Green, who showed a great deal of style with a two-handed reverse dunk. That put the Lakers within one point. The Mavericks finally got their second field goal of the quarter, but Green came right back with a basket after an offensive rebound.

Seven more points from Scott in the next two minutes and a driving hoop by Abdul-Jabbar put the game away, 118-112, with 3:17 left.

After that, the only thing left to consider was the effectiveness of the Laker defense in the fourth quarter. Dallas shot just 27.8% in the quarter (5-for-18) after shooting 60% the first three quarters. There were two possible explanations.

“We were a little tentative going down the stretch,” Maverick Coach Dick Motta said.

The other reasoning is that the Lakers play better defense when they are on the verge of losing. For the third consecutive game, they were behind at halftime. But they’ve managed to win each one of them.

“I don’t think we’re in a mode where we turn it on and off because you can get burned when you do that to a good team,” Scott said of the defense. Scott is also the same Laker who showed absolutely no hesitation with the offensive part of his game.

“I try not to think when I shoot,” he said. “It messes me up.”

Scott fired 27 shots, the most of any Laker in one game this season, and 14 of them were on target. However, Magic Johnson was even more scoring-minded, which is a bit unusual for him. Johnson finished with 30 points and 15 assists.

Green isn’t noted for his offense, but he made all five of his shots, including a seldom-seem jumper, and matched Kurt Rambis for the Laker lead in rebounds with nine.

Vincent welcomed Green into the game with nine points in a two-minute stretch of the second quarter when the Mavericks were shooting the lights out. At the half, Dallas led by one point, but with Aguirre bagging 13 points in the 41-point third quarter, the Mavericks moved ahead, 105-97, entering the fourth.

Little did the Mavericks know they were playing right into the Lakers’ hands.

“We’ve been very fortunate so far,” said Lucas, who had eight rebounds in 14 minutes. “It sure seems like we only play defense when we have to, but all we’re doing is winning, so I guess it’s all right.”