Lakers Show Bucks the Skid Stops Here With 125-115 Win

So many strange things happened to the Lakers Tuesday in the Forum that they just knew it had to be their night.

On one oddball play, James Worthy banked a straight-in jumper off the glass.

“I practice that shot,” Worthy said.

Uh huh. What about Kurt Rambis shanking two free throws, only to have Mike McGee pick up the loose ball and fire up a three-pointer that had the arc of a clothesline?

“It’s about time something good happened to us,” Rambis said.

Something good and something strange happened, all right. For the first time in eight days, the Lakers didn’t lose. They broke their three-game losing streak with a 125-115 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks before a sellout crowd of 17,505.

The Lakers made some changes that Coach Pat Riley hoped would snap them out of their losing frame of mind before they were in need of therapy. Not only did Mike McGee move into the starting lineup for the first time this season, but Byron Scott came off the bench, also for the first time.

Both McGee, who started quickly, and Scott, who finished fast, played big roles for the Lakers. But it was left to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to come up with the biggest numbers.

Abdul-Jabbar scored 16 of his 32 points in the third quarter when the travel-weary Bucks mounted a mini-threat that shortened the Laker lead to just five points.

Abdul-Jabbar, who made 13 of 17 shots, ended any lingering hopes for the Bucks with a spinning baseline move for a dunk with under four minutes to play in the game. That came immediately after a three-pointer by Michael Cooper and increased the Laker lead to 115-105, a margin that proved more than enough to win.

No amount of lineup-shuffling is going to affect his game, Abdul-Jabbar said.

“I play the same night in and night out,” he said. “I know what my job is, and I do it no matter who else is playing.”

Somebody who wasn’t playing was Magic Johnson. For the third consecutive game, Johnson rested his swollen right knee. He will not travel with the Lakers for Thursday night’s game at Portland, Ore., but Johnson hopes to be ready for the 76ers Friday night in the Forum.

McGee was clearly ready for his first starting assignment as Scott’s replacement. McGee scored 12 points in 14 minutes of the first half as the Lakers rushed to a 60-48 lead.

“I always come into a game with my motor running,” McGee said.

After the intermission, it was Scott’s turn to race. He finished with 23 points, 15 in the second half, including a pair of long-distance jumpers to finish off the Bucks in the last three minutes.

The Bucks, playing their fourth game in five nights, got 24 points from Paul Pressey, yet never managed to get closer than eight points in the fourth quarter. They looked tired, but there was some disagreement on that issue.

“We just played terrible,” Coach Don Nelson said. “Fatigue wasn’t a factor.”

Pressey disagreed.

“Fatigue was a factor,” he said. “But not a big factor.”

Probably more of a factor was that the Lakers finally pulled themselves together at just the right time. Scott said the Lakers were much more intense than they had been during their stretch of four losses in five games.

“We have been getting kicked, beaten in every aspect of the game,” he said. “We treated this like it was a championship type of game. We had to prove ourselves again.”

There may be some more proving to do. The Lakers might be without Mitch Kupchak for a while. Kupchak severly sprained his right ankle early in the fourth quarter and is probably going to miss at least one game.

If Kupchak is going to be out, Riley said he will use 6-9 forwards Maurice Lucas and Rambis as backups to Abdul-Jabbar.

Cooper, who is Johnson’s backup at point guard, produced 15 points and 11 assists. He also managed to stay in the game after picking up three fouls in the first quarter.

With all the Laker injuries, everybody has to do more than his share. Worthy had 16 points, but he also finished with a career-high 9 assists.

The Lakers had four three-pointers, shot 63.8% and reminded Worthy of how it used to be.

“Our play tonight wasn’t nothing strange or something we hadn’t done before,” he said. “We’ve just been lulled into playing flat.”

After watching the Lakers drop back into the ranks of mortal teams because of their recent defeats, Riley said it is time for the Lakers to forget about being the best ever and set their sights on more realistic goals.

“We need to try to be the best team that night,” he said. “I’m kind of glad that all the talk about how good we are is over. It was all media hype, which was deservedly so since we got off to such a great start. But now, it’s history.”

So is the losing streak.

Laker Notes

Before the game, the Forum crowd of 17,505 observed a moment of silence for the seven people who died in Tuesday’s explosion of the space shuttle. . . . General Manager Jerry West said the Lakers would take no action before Thursday’s deadline for matching the offer sheet Bob McAdoo signed with Philadelphia. That means McAdoo will become a 76er and the Lakers will get nothing in return. “There’s not a thing we can do,” said West, who also wasn’t able to match the offer sheet and then trade McAdoo. Because of salary-cap restrictions, the Lakers are unable to keep McAdoo unless they drop another player who makes the same amount as Maurice Lucas, the player the Lakers designated to replace McAdoo. . . . Tom Collins, who is giving up his management of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, said it may take several months for Abdul-Jabbar’s business interests to be shifted under the control of a firm headed by Henry Bushkin.