Magic Is Too Much, Scores 38 at Houston

Team Kareem met Team Akeem here Sunday night, and will do so again this Friday at the Forum. One very big difference, though. One very tall difference. Kareem by then should be back with his team. Ah, you can hear those Inglewood jingle bells already.

Even without Abdul-Jabbar, their ailing center, the Lakers were good enough to beat Akeem Olajuwon and the can’t-get-no-worse Houston Rockets, 103-96, Sunday at the Summit.

This, remember, was the place where everything fell apart in last season’s Western Conference finals, and also the place where the Lakers lost this year’s season opener.

That was before injuries began racking up the Rockets, and before they got so rotten that they even lost a game on their own court to the Seattle SuperSonics by 56 points. That’s right, 56 points. Houston has gone directly into the dumper, having dropped four in a row and 12 of the last 15.

Magic Johnson was too much for the Rockets this time, in a tour de force that probably would have been too much for anybody. He scored a season-high 38 points. He made 16 of 16 at the free-throw line. He stretched his string there to 29 straight. He had 16 assists. He had eight rebounds and three steals. He handled the ball for 42 minutes with two turnovers. He flew Santa’s sled to the Pole in time for Thursday’s deliveries. No, scratch that last part. But he did do the rest of that stuff.

“He had to,” Coach Pat Riley said. “Magic had to play at another level. That’s what we needed, and that’s what he’s all about.”

Agreed Magic: “We needed somebody to sort of rise above, to take over. You’re missing 20 points a night, a lot of rebounds and a lot of double-teaming with Kareem not there. Somebody has to emerge. I did it offensively; other people did it defensively and on the boards.”

He means other people like A.C. Green, who appears to be getting better and better. For a guy with a splint on his left thumb, Green sure did get a good grip on the ball amongst much-taller men such as Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson. The second-year forward had 18 points and a career-best 16 boards.

Riley was so impressed, he sounded like a TV commercial. “A.C. is like a machine. He gets stronger as the game gets longer,” the Laker coach said.

He did everything but call A.C. the team sparkplug.

“I’m just grateful to be getting a chance to play,” Green said. “I’ve got a job to do and I’ve got to go do it. Got to stay focused on that, and nothing else.”

Since there still hasn’t been much help from the fill-in Laker centers--starter Mike Smrek and backup Frank Brickowski contributing only seven points and seven rebounds in two nights’ work--it was welcome news that Abdul-Jabbar was examined Sunday by a cornea specialist at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, was reported to be recovering nicely and expected to return to the lineup by Friday at the latest.

Thanks mainly to Green the Machine, though, the Lakers still managed to out-muscle the Rockets, forcing Coach Bill Fitch’s struggling team to get 45 points from guards Lewis Lloyd and Dirk Minniefield just to keep the game close. Even when the Lakers went stone cold in the second half, scoring eight points in a span of 9:04, the Rockets couldn’t do much about it.

Sampson missed most of the first half with foul trouble and finished with 13 points. Olajuwon played most of the way and finished with 19. Rodney McCray got seven points and a bloody nose. The Houston front line was just a shell of the one that fought the Celtics in last season’s NBA finals.

Worse yet, veteran guard Robert Reid is still out with a knee injury. “The guy we’ve got running our offense (Minniefield) has only been here two weeks,” Fitch said. “That’s part of our problem.”

The Rockets failed to take advantage of their guests’ second-hand lineup, even when Smrek again got three fouls before nine minutes were gone, and even when Brickowski forced teammate James Worthy into a traveling violation by steamrolling over him while Worthy had the ball.

Smrek did get his first basket in two starts, but also curled a couple of ground-hooks well short of the hoop. Abdul-Jabbar, he ain’t.

It was Magic who showed how the skyhook was meant to be done with 2:57 left in the game, giving the Lakers a 93-91 lead with a sweeping 12-footer. Later, with the team up by a point, Johnson swished his 28th and 29th consecutive free throws, then followed them with a 20-foot jumper with 44 seconds remaining.

Game to the Lakers, their 19th in 25 starts. Only Atlanta has as good a record.

The Lakers move on to Sacramento for a Tuesday date before fast-breaking toward their homes for the holidays. Abdul-Jabbar’s condition will be re-evaluated today, to see if he can play. If he cannot, he should be able to face Houston on the night after Christmas.

As for the Rockets, they are bound to get better. “They might be playing bad now, but they’ve still got good talent and personnel,” Magic said. “Right now they are playing bad, but I’m pretty sure things’ll get better by the playoffs.”

Things actually are getting better for the Rockets already. On Tuesday night, they play the Clippers.