Some Lakers Go Through Motions : Abdul-Jabbar, Johnson, Rambis Sit Out a 127-104 Defeat

The Lakers ended their second most successful season in history by getting crushed, which says more about the length of the season than what kind of team they will be in the playoffs.

What kind of team were the Lakers Sunday night in the Forum?

The kind that loses 127-104 to the Dallas Mavericks, who get the award for best performance by a team in a miserable game that probably never should have been played.

At least Dallas Coach Dick Motta found one bright spot.

“No one got hurt,” he said.

The Lakers were the last NBA team to end its regular season. Everybody else finished earlier, but Sunday night’s game didn’t end soon enough for Laker Coach Pat Riley.

Riley couldn’t watch all of it, so he walked off the court with one second left. Later, Riley struggled to attach some cosmic significance to Game 82.

“It was like watching paint dry,” he said. “But they were using a spray gun and we were using rollers.”

However you wished to paint the Lakers’ regular season windup, it wasn’t pretty. But who really cares? The Lakers obviously didn’t, since Riley rested Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kurt Rambis.

Motta countered by playing Mark Aguirre all of nine minutes and Rolando Blackman 16 minutes. Jay Vincent scored 19 points to lead Dallas, which broke open the game in a 41-point third quarter.

Playing loosely, the game unraveled quickly right after halftime. This game was not one to be taken too seriously. Even Motta got in the spirit.

Once when Dale Ellis hesitated taking a three-point shot, Motta issued some instructions.

“Shoot the ball,” Motta said. “Let me worry about missing.”

The next time he got the ball, Ellis fired in a three-pointer.

James Worthy, who scored 15 points in an abbreviated 20-minute appearance, was not devastated by the defeat.

“It really isn’t a big deal,” he said.

That’s the way the Lakers played it. They allowed 74 points in the second half and although Byron Scott scored 24 points in 37 minutes, he said the Lakers just didn’t seem to be too interested in playing another game.

“You knew it wouldn’t help us gain anything in the playoffs, so you really don’t go out and give 100%,” said Scott. “You just go out and play half-speed.”

So now the 5 1/2-month warmup to the playoffs is over, for each of the 16 teams whose season is extended for a while. The Lakers move on to play San Antonio and the Mavericks get Utah.

If both the Lakers and Mavericks win, they will meet again in the second round of the playoffs. That possibility quickly brought the expected canine cliche lines from Vincent.

“If it does happen, it’s going to be a dogfight,” he said. “We’re not just gonna’ roll over and play dead.”

In the Laker locker room, it was clearly time to eat cake. There were two of them standing by. One was strawberry and the other was chocolate.

It would have been nice to close out the regular season with a victory, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be. The writing was on the cake.

One of the cakes had the Laker record of 62-20 written in blue icing, which was done before the game, perhaps in anticipation that the Lakers would lose.

“It was real obvious the season was over for us Saturday night, as far as effort goes,” Riley said. “It was a very difficult game for us, but you’ve got to play 82.”

After all those 82 were played, the Lakers ended with the same record as last season. They set an NBA record by finishing 22 games ahead of Portland in the Pacific Division. And that’s not all.

The Lakers averaged 117.3 points a game, which was the league’s best. They won 19 of their last 23 games, they won 13 of their last 14 at the Forum and they set a club attendance record for one season.