Laker Road Show Leaves Cleveland Behind, 128-116

This winning thing is getting a little routine for the Lakers, who Friday night won another game and picked up another endorsement from another beaten coach.

Cleveland Cavaliers Coach George Karl saw his team lose, 128-116, and suggested afterward that the Lakers might as well stop to get themselves bronzed on their way out of town.

“They are the best basketball team ever to play the game,” Karl said. “You have to be smarter than Magic and Kareem to beat the Lakers, and I don’t know if that’s possible.”

It certainly wasn’t possible for the Cavaliers, who ran into the streaking Lakers before a sellout crowd of 20,900 at the Coliseum.

The Lakers did little to tarnish their image, which isn’t hurt much by their 23-3 record. Karl’s assessment notwithstanding, if the Lakers are not the best team in history, a title that is still up for grabs, then they’re still the best team in the NBA this season.

You don’t even have to believe Karl. Hubie Brown and Don Nelson, coaches of the other two teams the Lakers have defeated on this trip, said the same thing after they were beaten.

The Lakers put up a pretty good argument for themselves against the Cavaliers.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 29 points in 31 minutes. Magic Johnson had 19 points and 14 assists in 36 minutes. The Lakers shot 55%. They had 52 rebounds. They led by 20 points going into the fourth quarter.

“Very few teams can stay with us when we play like we played tonight,” Laker Maurice Lucas said.

Abdul-Jabbar didn’t play in the fourth quarter, which was a good thing because it may have saved Karl and Cavalier guard World B. Free from melting into a pool of hyperbole.

“He was so good, it was scary,” Karl said. “I was scared to death. He made it look so easy, it was unbelievably scary.”

Free said that the way Abdul-Jabbar and the Lakers were playing, he knew the Cavaliers had no chance.

“It would have taken nine more men on the court to beat them,” Free said.

Now, why would he say that?

Maybe because it appears to be close to the truth. The Lakers have now won four games in a row, 12 of 13, 19 of 21 and are 59-9 since Jan. 18 of last season.

The Lakers won this time because of a 39-point third quarter that was accomplished in the time-honored team tradition of the fast break. Cleveland was still lurking close by, trailing only 63-59 at halftime, until the Lakers put the game away with still a quarter to go.

But after a few no-look passes by Johnson, a couple of bombs by Byron Scott and a series of sky hooks by Abdul-Jabbar, it was over. As Laker Coach Pat Riley was looking back on the game, he was asked where the Lakers made mistakes.

“Well, we didn’t defensive rebound very well in the first half,” he said.

Is that all?

“Well, maybe, because it was a pretty decisive win for us,” he said.

It certainly was that and more. It more than made up for the Laker loss to Cleveland at the Forum earlier this season. Part of the reason was the effectiveness of Scott, who didn’t have to worry about guarding Free.

Riley switched his defensive matchups, putting 6-9 James Worthy on the 6-2 Free, who was then double-teamed as soon as he got the ball. Free finished with 15 points on only 4-of-13 shooting from the field.

Scott made 10 of 15 shots and scored 21 points in only 30 minutes. Because of Scott’s accuracy, Karl could not drop two or three defenders on Abdul-Jabbar. So the Laker center was basically guarded by just one defensive player, especially in the third quarter when he scored 13 points.

“If we have Byron hitting his shots, they have to contend with him,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “That really puts a lot of pressure on the defense.”

Abdul-Jabbar also put on the pressure when the Lakers were moving away swiftly in the third quarter. In a span of 35 seconds, he scored six points as the Laker lead grew to 85-71. A hook by Abdul-Jabbar and his third three-point play of the quarter gave the Lakers an 18-point lead in the last minute.

In 101 minutes on this trip, Abdul-Jabbar has scored 85 points. He has led the Lakers in scoring in each of the three games.

“He was incredible,” Riley said. “There wasn’t much they could do.”

Laker Notes The Lakers will play the Washington Bullets tonight at Capital Centre, where they have lost three straight game and nine of their last 10. . . . It took referee Earl Strom 2 1/2 hours to get to the arena after he lost control of his car during a snowstorm. The car was hit by another car and slid down an embankment. A fan who recognized Strom got five friends to push Strom’s car back on the road. . . . Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s scoring average of 22.2 is his highest since the 1981-82 season. . . . Larry Spriggs had five rebounds in 14 minutes, the most time he has played this season.