NBA PLAYOFFS : 8 IS ENOUGH, OR IS IT? : Lakers Using Kupchak, McGee, Spriggs as Benchmarks

Remember Mitch Kupchak? Tall guy. Wears a knee brace. Likes to throw his body on the floor. Plays for the Lakers.

Check that.

Kupchak sometimes plays for the Lakers. He hasn’t played at all lately.

Then there are Lakers such as Mike McGee and Larry Spriggs, who also used to be able to get into a game. Not recently.

Kupchak, McGee and Spriggs are playing a new position for the Lakers so far in the playoffs.

They are designated sitters.

They put on their uniforms, take a seat and stay in it. This is not an accident, it is by design.

Coach Pat Riley went into the playoffs with a plan to use primarily eight players, and he has stuck with it. Besides starters Kurt Rambis, James Worthy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Byron Scott, he has used Michael Cooper, Maurice Lucas and either Petur Gudmundsson or A.C. Green.

In the two games against Houston, and in two of their nine other playoff games, Riley has played only eight men, which means that he is rapidly becoming this season’s K.C. Jones.

A year ago at this time, Jones was being widely criticized for playing too few of his Boston Celtics and not going to his bench often enough.

Now, Riley is doing the same thing, but unlike Jones, who reacted angrily to the criticism, Riley is not in the least defensive about his plan, mainly because he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

“Take a look at the key minutes the Celtics are playing,” Riley said. “I don’t have to rationalize and be defensive about what I’m doing. I made a choice that I’m going with eight or maybe nine guys, and I think we can be successful.”

What is at stake here for the Lakers? A lower water bill due to fewer showers, for one thing, but another is the possibility of overworking the starters. Riley said, however, that recent results have proved his method to be correct.

“It sure as hell isn’t time, after what happened in Game 1 with Houston, after beating Dallas two games in a row and blowing them out in the last game, to start making a lot of changes,” he said.

With the Lakers’ Western Conference final series against the Rockets tied, 1-1, and with Game 3 Friday night at Houston, the nonplaying Lakers are probably going to stay that way. This means, for the time being, that they’re going to have to take it sitting down.

“This is not the time to start rocking the boat,” Kupchak said. “Sure, I’d like to play, but I’m just going to stay ready in case I get called on.”

If he ever is needed, at least Kupchak will be well-rested. He has not played since Game 1 of the Dallas series, when Riley used him for exactly two minutes. Since then, Kupchak hasn’t gotten off the bench, except for warm-ups, in seven consecutive games.

Kupchak has appeared in three playoff games for a total of 28 minutes. By contrast, Johnson has played 418 minutes, the most of any Laker.

“I’ll tell you what my philosophy is,” Riley said. “If I start playing Mitch, then I’m going to play him what, five minutes and play Luke (Lucas) five less minutes and not play Petur? I’d rather give the guy the full shot, and if I decide to go to Mitch, then I won’t play Petur.

“Five minutes doesn’t do much,” Riley said. “It has a tendency to screw up the continuity more than anything.

“This same thing happened last season when Mitch didn’t play much for three series, then played against Boston,” Riley said. “When Mitch gets his shot, he’ll be ready. Maybe there might not be the same kind of efficiency, but you can only play so many guys.”

It seems that cases could be made for using Spriggs and McGee on occasion.

Against the Mavericks, Spriggs might have had some success against Mark Aguirre, and McGee is valuable as a baseline-to-baseline backcourt defender in a pressure defense and can also shoot from the perimeter. Perimeter shooting was a Laker shortcoming in the loss to the Rockets in Game 2.

But McGee got into two games against Dallas for a total of six minutes and hasn’t played in either of the games with Houston. McGee, who has talked to Riley before about his lack of playing time, has decided that it is better for him to back off now.

“I just don’t want to say anything to make him mad at me,” said McGee, whose total playing time in the playoffs is 24 minutes. “Just say it’s a coach’s decision, and I’ll be ready when he wants me.”

Among the designated sitters, Spriggs has been off his feet the most. His playoff total is 13 minutes in three games. Spriggs hasn’t played since the San Antonio series ended April 22, which means an absence of eight games.

“The coach knows what he’s doing,” Spriggs said. “But I’m worried that we won’t be able to sustain playing only eight guys.”

Riley said that if using a lot of players is such a great idea, why don’t the Rockets do it? In Game 2, Houston Coach Bill Fitch played each of his starters between 36 and 47 minutes. Two other Rockets, Jim Peterson and Allen Leavell, combined for 14 minutes, and Mitchell Wiggins was in for 21 minutes.

“They play their six best players,” Riley said. “They’re playing six guys yeoman minutes. Why should I have to go deeper? I might go a little deeper, but where? I think our big men are doing a good job. Our three guards are being pretty consistent.

“Match-ups, deeper in the bench, all of that stuff comes down to the fact that we just got our butts whipped in Game 2,” Riley said. “Whether I would have played 10 or 11, we still would have gotten whipped, the way we were playing.”

Laker Notes The Rockets took the day off from practice Wednesday, but the Lakers worked 1 1/2 hours on their half-court offense. That was not Pat Riley’s only area of concern after losing Game 2, 112-102. “As much as our offense wasn’t working, our defense was horrendous. It’s been getting progressively softer. We have to play better defense in transition. That’s more important than anything we have to do. If we’re going to allow them easy baskets, it’s just going to make those two big guys (Ralph Sampson and Akeem Olajuwon) inside even tougher.” . . . The Rockets were 36-5 this season at The Summit, the second-best home record in the NBA. The Celtics’ 40-1 mark at Boston Garden was the best.

UNDERWORKED

MITCH KUPCHAK

G MIN REB PTS Regular Season 55 14.2 3.5 6.0 San Antonio Series 2 13.0 5.5 5.0 Dallas-Houston Series* 1 2.0 0.0 2.0

MIKE McGEE

G MIN REB PTS Regular Season 71 17.1 1.9 8.3 San Antonio Series 3 6.0 1.7 4.7 Dallas-Houston Series* 2 3.0 0.0 1.0

LARRY SPRIGGS

G MIN REB PTS Regular Season 43 10.9 1.9 5.0 San Antonio Series 3 4.3 2.3 6.7 Dallas-Houston Series* 0 0.0 0.0 0.0

* 8 Games

OVERWORKED

KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR

G MIN REB PTS Regular Season 79 33.3 6.1 23.4 San Antonio Series 3 24.0 4.3 17.0 Dallas-Houston Series 8 36.6 5.8 28.5

MAGIC JOHNSON

G MIN AST PTS Regular Season 72 35.8 12.5 18.8 San Antonio Series 3 34.0 16.0 19.0 Dallas-Houston Series 8 39.5 14.9 23.0

Note--Figures for minutes, rebounds, assists and points are per game.