Lakers Just Won’t Stop, Even for the Nuggets

Which is the hottest team in the NBA?

If you said the Lakers, then you can advance to the playoffs, which is where Coach Pat Riley wishes his team was right about now.

The Lakers won again Tuesday night when they beat the Denver Nuggets, 121-115, something they haven’t been able to do since Nov. 8.

But that was a long time ago, not like what the Lakers have been doing recently, especially this month. The Lakers, who won their fourth straight and 13th in their last 14, have only lost once since March 1.

Only nine games are left in the regular season for the Lakers, who seem to be getting a lot closer to the level of play Riley expects.

“As we sort of wander through the end of the season, I know we’ve got the juices flowing,” Riley said. “I also know the players are going to conjure it up right around the corner.”

After dropping three straight to the Nuggets, the Lakers were having great difficulty conjuring up a victory against Doug Moe’s team. The Lakers accomplished it by springing James Worthy loose for 30 points, by Byron Scott shooting the lights out and also by showing some playoff-type intensity.

You could see that happen when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar floored Bill Hanzlik with an elbow to the head. This act made Moe the hottest coach in the league, at least temporarily.

Moe, who came charging off the bench in anger, thought Abdul-Jabbar was guilty of a cheap shot not worthy of a player of his stature.

“That was total crap,” Moe said. “I hollered at Pat because he was saying Kareem doesn’t do stuff like that. Hey, he does it all the time. He shouldn’t have to do things like that.”

Abdul-Jabbar did not deny he threw his elbow at Hanzlik but claimed extenuating circumstances.

“I elbowed him,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He elbowed me, I elbowed him.”

Hanzlik said he had to disagree.

“I’m not going to elbow Kareem,” he said. “If I do, I’m going to get killed. It’s like Samson and Goliath.”

Whether it was Samson and Delilah or David and Goliath, the brief skirmish did not actually swing the game as much as the Laker defense when the outcome was still very much undecided.

A Laker tandem of Kurt Rambis and Michael Cooper did a better than average job on Alex English, the league’s leading scorer.

English still got his average with 29 points, but he made only 11 of 25 shots and like the rest of the Nuggets, primarily guards Lafayette Lever and Mike Evans, he had his trouble putting the ball in the basket.

The Lakers had no such problem once Magic Johnson, who had 19 assists, began dropping passes into the hands of his shooters. As a result, the Lakers shot 58% with Scott bagging 24 points on 9-for-14 shooting.

Denver did not lead after the first quarter, but the Nuggets still stayed close to make it interesting. The Lakers ran off to an 85-70 lead with 5:19 left in the third quarter and were still ahead by 12 going into the fourth.

When Maurice Lucas ripped a corner jumper with 10:10 to go, the Lakers looked like they had it in the bag, 102-88. It didn’t turn out that way.

Wayne Cooper’s rebound basket and consecutive three-point plays by Danny Schayes and Elston Turner got the Nuggets to 102-96, and Riley was forced to call a timeout.

The game turned on the next play when Worthy got loose inside, scored and was fouled by Cooper. Worthy’s free throw made it 105-96, and the Nuggets had only one last charge left in them.

Calvin Natt dunked to cut the Laker lead to 111-108 with 4:02 remaining, but Magic drove the middle for a layup. Then Schayes threw the ball away under pressure, and the Laker defense allowed only two more baskets the rest of the way.

Natt had 22 points, but he was limited to only 26 minutes because of knee problems. With Rambis and then Cooper on him, English was not allowed to attempt a shot in the last five minutes.

At the other end, from Worthy’s three-point play on, all the Laker points were the result of either shots from close range or free throws.

Abdul-Jabbar believes the Lakers, with scant pressure from the rest of the Western Conference, are gaining momentum on their own.

“We’re close, but we’re not there yet,” he said. “We’ve got three weeks yet. That’s a good amount of time. Our defensive concept is pretty sound and we’ve been playing better lately, but we still have to play more consistently.”

The Lakers got into trouble most of the time when they committed turnovers. They had 25, including five in the fourth quarter when the Nuggets were coming back.

“They tried to take advantage of what we don’t do well, and that is handle the ball,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “But I thought we handled it well down the stretch.”

And for the first time in a long while, they also handled the Nuggets.