Lakers Get Gift and Win; Scott Is a Perfect 10

The Lakers beat the Dallas Mavericks Wednesday night when Byron Scott never missed, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rarely missed and Ed Rush missed the only time it really counted.

Rush, a veteran official, mistakenly called a 24-second violation on the Mavericks late in the fourth quarter with Dallas ahead by a point.

On that single call, the game swung to the Lakers. But what kind of call was it?

“It was a gutsy call,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said.

It was also a bad call.

Rush’s decision robbed the Mavericks of the ball, which the Lakers gratefully accepted on their way to a 119-116 comeback victory before a sellout crowd of 17,007 in Reunion Arena.

There are a lot of ways to win a game, but the Lakers experienced one of the weirdest. After blowing a nine-point lead in three minutes of the fourth quarter, they trailed, 113-112, with just more than two minutes left.

Brad Davis drove the lane. The excitement began.

Davis lofted a shot in heavy traffic and missed, and the 24-second clock ran out on the play just before the Lakers fumbled the rebound out of bounds.

Rush started to give the Mavericks the ball again, then noted that the shot clock had expired, so he decided that the Lakers had possession.

However, replays showed that Davis’ shot had actually grazed the bottom of the rim, which meant the shot clock should have been reset to 24 seconds and the Mavericks should have gotten the ball back.

“I was surprised he gave it to us,” the Lakers’ Michael Cooper said. “I was right under the basket, and the ball hit the bottom of the rim. I guess that’s one of the breaks that God gave us.”

Once the Lakers got their gift, Cooper drilled a 15-footer, and Scott came right back, after forcing a turnover by the Mavericks’ Dale Ellis, to sink a 15-foot jumper for a 116-113 lead. Davis and Kurt Rambis traded free throws before Mark Aguirre’s rebound basket got the Mavericks within 117-116 with 27 seconds left.

Two free throws by Cooper put the Lakers ahead by three points, and the Mavericks missed two shots in the last 10 seconds to go down as unlucky losers.

It didn’t have to happen that way. The Mavericks scored only one basket in the last three minutes and committed three crucial turnovers, even if one of them never should have counted.

But that’s the way it’s going for the Mavericks, who in their previous game, a 110-105 loss at Houston Monday night, were outscored, 12-2, in the final 2 minutes 51 seconds.

“It seems like this team is just snakebit right now,” Dallas Coach Dick Motta said. “There seems to be a snake running loose biting the hell out of us.”

Meanwhile, the Lakers are running loose again after completing their 10-day trip, the season’s longest, with a 3-2 record. And no one was running or shooting any better Wednesday night than Scott was.

In his best game in nearly a month, Scott took 10 shots and made them all. He finished with 21 points, even though he was playing on a sore right ankle.

“Maybe we should just go ahead and break it,” trainer Gary Vitti said.

Abdul-Jabbar led the Lakers with 25 points and made 10 of his 13 field-goal attempts, which along with Scott’s shooting helped the Lakers establish their season high for marksmanship, 65.4%.

Magic Johnson came back from 2-for-10 shooting in the first half to drop 8 of 10 shots in the second half and finish with 21 points.

After the Lakers were down by a point at the half, Johnson scored 10 points and Abdul-Jabbar 8 in a third quarter during which the Lakers made 17 of 21 shots.

The Lakers needed every bit of their hot shooting, in addition to Rush’s favorable call, to put away the Mavericks, who got 28 points from Mark Aguirre and 19 from Rolando Blackman.

A 10-2 spurt, six of the points coming at the free-throw line, gave the Lakers a 106-97 lead with 6:17 left in the game. But only a few minutes later, after a couple of rainbow three-pointers by Ellis, the Mavericks had taken a 113-112 lead.

The next time the Mavericks got the ball, Rush took it away from them.

“This game was par for the course,” Maverick center James Donaldson said. “The officiating is suspect in every game, but you don’t point the finger at the referees--you just continue to play hard.”

Unfortunately, the Mavericks made too many mistakes, some of them forced by the Laker defense.

After the 24-second call by Rush, the Mavericks twice committed turnovers. Scott caused Ellis to drop the ball out of bounds, then Davis fumbled the ball into Scott’s hands while dribbling upcourt.

Cooper said he thought that tiredness might have caused the Mavericks to commit the turnovers.

“They played like they were fatigued when we turned on the defense,” Cooper said. “In the fourth quarter, you could see a lot of their guys sucking wind.”

Rush tried to make up for his error right after Scott’s jumper that put the Lakers ahead, 116-113, when he called a hand-check foul on Cooper. But Davis made only one of his two free throws.

“He (Rush) knew that the ball had hit the rim, but the foul call (on Cooper) didn’t have the same impact as the 24-second call,” Motta said.

Rambis didn’t believe the game swung on one bad call, anyway.

“There were 100 other plays you could look back and say affected the game,” he said. “I don’t believe in luck.”

The Lakers will take it, anyway.

Laker Notes Byron’s Scott 10-for-10 shooting night tied a Laker record. It was only the fifth time in team history that a Laker had not missed a field goal in a game with at least 10 attempts. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has done it twice this season. The two other Lakers who have done it: Wilt Chamberlain and Mitch Kupchak. . . . Kupchak did not play because his left knee was still sore, but he said he might be ready Friday night against Phoenix at the Forum.