Rockets Have a Block Party at Forum, 112-102 : Houston Rejects 12 Laker Shots in Victory That Evens Series, 1-1

The Lakers took their best shot Tuesday night in the Forum. It was blocked.

Actually, there weren’t a lot of what could be called good shots leaving Laker hands, but there were quite a few shots sent spinning quickly in the opposite direction.

How did the Lakers lose, 112-102 to the Houston Rockets? Count the ways. You can stop at 12, the number of Laker shots that were blocked by the Rockets.

Also blocked, apparently, is the Laker path to the NBA championship final, now that the Rockets have placed themselves directly in the way.

At this moment, the Western Conference final is a dead heat, tied at a game apiece. And for that, the Rockets can thank their Twin Towers, who rose to new heights, read the book on the Laker offense and gave it the ultimate rejection notice.

Akeem Olajuwon blocked six shots, and his partner Ralph Sampsom blocked five, sending Laker center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the way toward a night to forget.

“One time, I think they dropped somebody out of the ceiling on me,” said Abdul-Jabbar, who made only 9 of 26 shots and scored 21 points. “It was a tough night.”

The Lakers received 24 points, 19 assists and 8 rebounds from Magic Johnson, who single-handedly tried to revive his teammates from an unexpected funk that occurred right after they jumped to their biggest lead of the night.

Early in the second quarter, the Lakers were off and running to a 34-20 lead, but after that, they should have called the whole thing off and begun packing their bags for Houston, where the best-of-seven series resumes Friday night.

What happened to the Lakers, who had such an easy time in Game 1 last Saturday?

“Probably 11 blocked shots and 29 rebounds from their big guys,” Laker forward Maurice Lucas said. “Those kind of numbers can put you in an awkward position.”

This is the place where the Lakers find themselves now: Their home-court advantage is a memory; three of the next five games will be played in Houston, and Olajuwon said he knows what that means.

“This game gives us a lot of confidence going back to Houston because we can’t lose there,” Olajuwon said. “We’ll do whatever it takes to win.”

Meanwhile, the Lakers were doing whatever it took to lose Game 2. They should have known what kind of night it would be for them very early. After nearly four minutes of numbingly inept basketball, evenly divided on both sides, the score was 4-2.

The first shot of the game was a hook by Abdul-Jabbar, who stumbled crossing the lane but still put the ball in the hoop. After one quarter, the Lakers led only 25-18, but the worst was not yet behind them.

“It was really ugly basketball,” Houston Coach Bill Fitch said. “It was something you’d see on Halloween.”

In 10 previous playoff games, the Lakers had not shot worse than they did Tuesday night. At the same time, the Rockets came back from a terrible shooting performance in Game 1 and got 24 points from Lewis Lloyd, 16 from Rodney McCray and 14 from Mitchell Wiggins.

Sampson matched Lloyd with 24 points, led the Rockets with 16 rebounds and finished one assist short of a triple-double. Olajuwon wound up with 22 points and 13 rebounds and helped the Rockets to an overwhelming 51-38 rebounding advantage.

If rebounding was a problem for the Lakers, so was their shooting. The Lakers, the best-shooting team in the NBA during the regular season, made only 44.4% of their field-goal attempts.

Johnson, who didn’t score his first basket until just more than two minutes remained in the first half, dominated the game early in the fourth quarter, when the Lakers made their only run since the first quarter.

By either scoring on his own or assisting somebody else, Johnson accounted for 18 consecutive Laker points that narrowed the Rocket lead to 94-92 with 8:14 to go. Consecutive three-pointers by Byron Scott and Michael Cooper at the end of the spurt got the Lakers close.

But on the next three trips down the floor, the Lakers squandered opportunities to tie the game. First, Scott turned the ball over when he committed an offensive foul, then Abdul-Jabbar missed a hook, and that was followed by another turnover when the Rockets’ Robert Reid swiped a pass from James Worthy.

Somehow, the Rockets went back up by eight points, even though they did it without Olajuwon, who was sitting down with five personal fouls.

Lloyd bagged a couple of perimeter jumpers to keep the Lakers from getting too close.

“They were giving me the outside shot the whole game, and I think I proved it was a mistake,” Lloyd said.

This was the same Laker strategy that had worked in Game 1, when Lloyd and the rest of the Rocket shooters missed many opportunities. One game later, it was the Lakers who blew the same chances from the perimeter.

“But it’s hard to even get a shot off in the lane with those two big guys,” Byron Scott said, referring to Sampson and Olajuwon.

Abdul-Jabbar was as frustrated as any Laker shooter. He had four of his attempts rejected when either Sampson or Olajuwon dropped off other defensive assignments to help out on Abdul-Jabbar.

“I’d beat one of their big men and another would block my shot,” the Laker center said.

There is some symmetry to the way Olajuwon and Sampson played, said Reid, who believes that the Rocket big men played the way they’re supposed to play in a big game.

“They gave us what we asked of them,” Reid said. “They reached down for something extra. Then they reached up and blocked some shots.”

Laker Notes

Ronnie Lester underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Tuesday morning. Lester, 26, had torn cartilage. . . . Games 3 and 4 will be played in Houston, Friday night and Sunday afternoon. . . . The Lakers may find some comfort in the fact that in three of the last four playoff seasons, they lost Game 2 of the conference semifinal at the Forum and still came back to win the series. . . . Ralph Sampson was not overly excited by all the shot-blocking. “When you have two 7-footers in there who can jump, blocking shots is part of the game,” he said. . . . Of the Rockets’ 12 blocked shots, Jim Peterson got the one that didn’t go to Ralph Sampson or Akeem Olajuwon.