134-100--That’s Magical Enough : Without Johnson, Lakers Pull Off an Unlikely Rout of Surging 76ers

Who was that 6-9 guy wearing a suit and slapping hands with the Lakers during timeouts? He looked pretty familiar.

“Magic Johnson?” Byron Scott said.

Yes, that’s right, it was Magic Johnson, the highest-paid cheerleader in the National Basketball Assn. He sure had his hands full Friday night.

Laker high-fives and jump shots were everywhere in the Forum, where the recently struggling Lakers routed the Philadelphia 76ers, 134-100, in a game that was every bit as close as the final score indicated.

If you’re counting, that’s a 34-point margin of victory. And if you expected something even remotely like that to occur, then you’re clairvoyant, because nobody else did.

“I wouldn’t have believed it in a 100 years,” Scott said. “But basketball is a funny game. There’s just no telling.”

There’s certainly no way to figure out the Lakers. With Johnson looking on from the Laker bench, where he was nursing his sore right knee back to health, the Lakers crushed one of the best teams in the NBA, a team that had won 18 of its previous 22 games.

“They came at us in waves,” said Bob McAdoo, the newest 76er, who played decently in his debut against his former Laker teammates.

When the Lakers play as they did against the 76ers, there’s not much the other team can do about it. And, indeed, the 76ers did very little.

Even without Johnson and Mitch Kupchak, who is also injured, the Lakers shot off to a 13-point halftime lead, then put the game away with a 42-point third quarter that left 76er Coach Matty Guokas breathing hard on the receiving end of a 29-point confidence-smasher.

“I’m dismayed,” Guokas said. “Every pass was an adventure for us.”

While Scott leaped off the bench to score 24 points in a Laker offensive orgy, the defense is probably what turned the game. Laker defenders stole the ball 15 times and forced 27 turnovers, many of which ended in breakaways, mismatches, transition baskets and opportunity shots.

It got so bad at one point in the fourth quarter that the Lakers led by 40 points, 132-92.

“I don’t know if we believed we were ever ahead that much,” Coach Pat Riley said.

The Lakers had seven players score in double figures, shot 62.9% as a team and played as though their recent troubles were a thing of the past.

James Worthy was a factor with 22 points, but so was the recently minted backcourt of Michael Cooper and Mike McGee, who combined for 37 points. Added to Scott’s total, the three Laker guards finished with 61 points.

“We were just a little hungry,” Worthy said. “We wanted to play like the old Lakers, not the new Lakers. We’ve been playing so bad lately. They (the 76ers) have been playing great, and we haven’t.

“What happened tonight was that we played good defense, and our guards hit their shots. That’s what we’ve needed all along.”

In the first quarter, Worthy had 10 points and McGee 9 as they got the Lakers off to a quick start. When the quarter was over, the Lakers had shot 69.6% and they were up by 16 points, 36-20. The 76ers never got any closer than eight points the rest of the way.

“It was total domination,” said Maurice Cheeks, who with 14 points and 7 assists was one of the few 76ers with anything close to his normal game.

Charles Barkley scored 17 points to lead the 76er offense, which never seemed to get untracked. Julius Erving was typical of what went wrong. He played 29 minutes but took only 6 shots and finished with 6 points.

Moses Malone’s rebounding in the early going and Sedale Threatt’s outside shooting helped the 76ers stay as close as they did, but as it turned out, that wasn’t very close at all.

“Tonight was just a bad night,” Barkley said. “We just got pounded, but that doesn’t mean we’re not a good team.”

Not too long ago, Riley spent a lot of time saying much the same thing about the Lakers when they were losing three straight games and four of five. This time, Riley couldn’t say enough good things about his Lakers.

“It was extremely proficient basketball,” he said. “I have no complaints.”

The Lakers probably weren’t as bad as they looked when they were losing and probably aren’t as good as they look now that they’re winning again. In reverse, neither are the 76ers.

But Riley admitted he was a little surprised that the Lakers would play so well after getting up at 5:30 a.m. Friday in Portland, Ore., where they had won, 118-94, the night before.

Scott said he didn’t feel so good at 5:30, but he felt better later in the day.

“At 2:30, I felt great,” Scott said.

Why?

“I was sleeping,” he said.

Now, the Lakers are playing as if they’re awake again.

“I think we’re getting back to our old selves,” Maurice Lucas said.

Laker Notes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, on Bob McAdoo: “The way he left us, well, that’s just the way things are. There weren’t any emotional reasons for sending him on his way other than business-wise. I figured somebody might take a chance on him. If he can come in and give them some good minutes, he’ll be a lift for them, for sure.” . . . McAdoo appeared in 285 games, counting playoffs, in his four years with the Lakers. Friday night’s game was the first time McAdoo had played against the Lakers since Jan. 11, 1980, when he scored 21 points in 29 minutes as a member of the Detroit Pistons. . . . If Abdul-Jabbar misses no games, he will break Elvin Hayes’ NBA record for games played Feb. 23 at Philadelphia. Hayes played in 1,303 games. . . . The Lakers have a rare 5 p.m. starting time for Sunday night’s game at the Forum against the New York Knicks.