Riley Gets the Right Response--a Win

He doesn’t have the moves of Magic, but Laker Coach Pat Riley can do some conjuring himself, especially at a time of year when it’s needed.

After the Lakers lost to Utah last Saturday, Riley conjured up a mini-crisis, openly questioning everything about the Lakers except their ancestry and sneaker contracts.

The Lakers may have greeted Riley’s dressing-down with arched eyebrows--they had, after all, won their previous six games. But they still responded Tuesday night with a 114-109 win over the Golden State Warriors before a sellout crowd of 15,025 in the Oakland Coliseum Arena, where the Lakers already had lost twice this season.

“We knew the next chance we had to play, we had to make a better accounting of ourselves,” said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored 15 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and buried a sky-hook that gave the Lakers a five-point lead, 112-107, with 49 seconds to go.

The Warriors scored on a lay-in by Larry Smith and got the ball back with 13 seconds left when James Worthy lost it out of bounds. But their bid for a third straight home-court win over the Lakers died with Joe Barry Carroll’s hurried air ball, launched from the vicinity of three-point range with seven seconds left.

With four shooters on the floor at the time--Sleepy Floyd, Chris Mullin, Purvis Short, and Greg Ballard--suffice to say the Warriors weren’t looking for Carroll to be putting up prayers. The 7-foot 1-inch center was having enough trouble hitting from his usual range--he made just 2 of his first 13 shots and finished 9 for 26--to be expanding his horizons with the game on the line.

Johnson caught the shot on the way down, and Byron Scott was fouled and made two free throws with three seconds to go to close out Golden State.

“I knew what time it was,” Carroll said, “and I knew we had to have a three-pointer to catch them. Sometimes you have to take chances. I regret missing the shot . . . but it’s not something that’s difficult to live with.”

The Lakers, of course, made it difficult for Golden State to get the ball to anyone else--especially Mullin, who burned them for 15 first-quarter points but scored just four the rest of the way, and Short, who threw in some impossible-looking, high-arcing shots.

“Incredible,” said Michael Cooper, who kept the ball out of Short’s hands down the stretch. “He made one shot in the first half where my hand was in his face and he still got it over me. I believe that if he’d taken that same shot at the end of the game, I probably would have blocked it.”

Riley thought Abdul-Jabbar might have blocked Carroll’s shot, but the Laker center said he didn’t get a piece of it.

“But I made him change it,” said Abdul-Jabbar, who knows something about 7-footers bombing from long range, having made a three-pointer himself a week ago.

The Lakers, who led by five at the half, 60-55, and nine at the end of three quarters, 90-81, were comfortably ahead, 98-88, with 8:13 to go.

But the Warriors outscored them, 12-2, in the next 3 1/2 minutes, with Carroll’s sky hook giving Golden State a 101-100 lead with 4:31 left.

“The last five or six minutes, we went back to standing around,” said Magic Johnson, “after moving the ball around better than we’d had in the last six or seven games.”

But after trading two baskets, Scott--who got open when Abdul-Jabbar knocked down Floyd with a pick--hit an 18-foot jumper to give the Lakers the lead for good, 106-105, with 2:41 left.

“My shot was on and off,” said Scott, who scored 26 points on 9-of-22 shooting. “I’d make two or three, then miss four in a row.

“But I knew I wasn’t just slinging it. If I had hesitated on that shot, or thought about it, I would have missed it.”

Floyd missed from three-point range, Abdul-Jabbar stripped the rebound from Carroll and Magic Johnson was fouled on the other end. Johnson made both free throws, and after Carroll missed an off-balance jumper, Magic hit a 17-footer to all but ice it.

Johnson finished with 21 points, 17 assists and 7 rebounds. That was the most notable Laker performance in a string of strong individual efforts that also included A.C. Green’s 12 rebounds and 2 blocked shots, Mychal Thompson’s 14 points off the bench and a strong 12 minutes by rookie Billy Thompson (7 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist).