Can Lakers Moe ‘Em Down in Playoffs? : That’s What the Nuggets’ Coach Is Saying--At Least Publicly

There have been 65 regular-season wins; an MVP-level performance by Magic Johnson; a calendar-shredding one by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; career-best years from Byron Scott, Michael Cooper and A.C. Green; rookie razzle-dazzle by Billy Thompson; a Walton-value addition in Mychal Thompson, and the usual sartorial splendor from Pat Riley.

So why is there still a legion of skeptics waiting for the other shoe--make that a size 15EEE sneaker--to drop on the Lakers, who open the National Basketball Assn. playoffs tonight at the Forum against the Denver Nuggets in a best-of-five first-round series?

Beats the heck out of Denver Coach Doug Moe, who is as aware as anybody else of the Lakers’ abrupt exit from last spring’s playoffs, when they were ousted in five games by the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference final.

“In the past, I’ve said I thought we could beat the Lakers,” Moe said from Denver in a conference telephone interview Wednesday morning. “. . . Unfortunately, I can’t say that this year. They can’t be beaten, especially by us.

“And when I say they’re unbeatable, I don’t stop at us. The Lakers will pretty much dominate everybody. At least, that’s my gut feeling. I hope I’m wrong. I was once before. I think it was 1964.”

It’s not that Moe is unable to envision a different scenario.

“When I sit in my chair and take me a little nap, I see us beating the Lakers three straight, taking Utah in four, knocking Dallas off, and then being down two in the seventh game to the Celtics, making a three-point shot, and we win,” Moe said.

“Then I wake up and we get our butts beat by L.A.”

There’s little reason for the Nuggets--who lost star forward Calvin Natt with a torn Achilles’ tendon in the season’s first game and finished eight games under .500 (37-45)--to believe it will be any other way. The Lakers won all five regular-season meetings between the teams by an average of 22 points, including wins of 38 and 36 points.

“We don’t want to get totally embarrassed and have them beat us by 30 points in three straight games,” Moe said. “We want to be competitive and see what happens from there.”

Things got so bad for the Nuggets at one point this season that they had to use 6-7 Bill Hanzlik at center, the shortest pivotman Abdul-Jabbar has seen since high school. They have a guard nicknamed Fat--Lafayette Lever--who is actually skinny--and another guard Darrell Walker, who has been assigned to guard Magic Johnson. Walker would have been better off assigned to guard the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

“Magic is so much of an offensive force,” Moe said the other day. “His shooting has gone from rotten to fair to good to great over the years. That’s what makes him so tough now, as compared to before.”

There was a time, Moe said, when you could give Magic the outside shot. No more.

“From time to time he would choke,” Moe said. “The outside shot, he was afraid to take. But he’s so much better an offensive player now. He was always great, but not a great shooter. Now he’s a great shooter, and it’s a joke.”

The first round has been played strictly for laughs by the Lakers in the last three years, when they’ve won nine straight games by an average of 20 points. And with the wise-cracking Moe around, there will be no shortage of one-liners this time, either.

For intriguing subplots, the Nuggets offer All-Star forward Alex English, who can match acting credits with Abdul-Jabbar when he’s not swapping lawsuits.

Abdul-Jabbar, of course, was a hit as a co-pilot in “Airplane.” English is the star of a new film, “Amazing Grace and Chuck,” in which he plays a pro basketball player who teams up with a Little League pitcher to try to stop the nuclear arms race. An improbable script? Not compared to a Nugget upset of the Lakers.

But for a future episode of “L.A. Law,” English and Abdul-Jabbar could submit a real-life scenario of high-salaried basketball players, who have lost millions of dollars in business deals, suing each other not only in court, but on the court. When Abdul-Jabbar was in Denver in February, he was served papers in the visiting dressing room. The last time English was here, in March, he was served papers while sitting on the bench during the game.

“I think it’s between Kareem and myself and shouldn’t affect our basketball playing,” English said Wednesday. “I don’t feel it’s anyone’s business what’s happening. . . . What happened is not as severe as it seems. To me, it isn’t.

“The only person who got served on the bench was myself. I expected that. I expected retaliation. I feel very good as far as what I did (suing Abdul-Jabbar). I feel it was very necessary. Unfortunately, Kareem didn’t feel the same.”

Early arrivals tonight can see whether English and Abdul-Jabbar, captains for their respective teams, will shake hands before the game--something Abdul-Jabbar refused to do in the teams’ last two meetings--or if they’ll send their lawyers instead.

“If he does (shake hands), that’s OK, but if he doesn’t, it won’t affect my game,” English said. “I still have a lot of respect for Kareem. He’s one of the greatest players ever to play the game, if not the greatest.”

Abdul-Jabbar refused to talk to a Times reporter.

There are any number of story lines to follow in the playoffs. To wit:

--Can the Boston Celtics, playing a hand of five aces and a wild card (Bill Walton), become the first champions to repeat since the 1969 Celtics? Kevin McHale (right foot), Robert Parish (right elbow), and Dennis Johnson (right shoulder) are banged up, and McHale will need surgery in the summer. Walton’s feet could give out at any time, the rest of the Boston bench just takes up space, and the whole team has been brutal on the road. Yet as long as Larry Bird is playing, the Celtics are favored in the East, despite the formidable new challenge of Atlanta.

--How many scoring records will Michael Jordan set in what figures to be a brief appearance by Chicago? Jordan scored 40 or more points 37 times this season, 50 or more in eight games, 60 or more twice. The Bulls guard bombed Boston with a playoff-record 63 points in one game last season, and gets to attempt an encore in the first round this spring.

--Will anyone still be standing if Houston and Dallas meet as expected in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs? The bad blood between these teams reached new levels after Dallas Coach Dick Motta accused Houston Coach Bill Fitch of tanking games so that the Rockets wouldn’t be bracketed with the Lakers in the playoffs. Motta was fined $5,000 by the league for his remarks, but that hardly had a calming effect, as the teams staged fights in each of their last two regular-season games: Al Wood of Dallas vs. Steve Harris in the first bout, Roy Tarpley of Dallas vs. Jim Petersen in the second. The nastiness may only be beginning.

--Can Abdul-Jabbar withstand the punishing pace of the playoffs at age 40, especially in the later rounds when he’ll be forced to cope with the likes of Akeem Olajuwon/James Donaldson/Joe Barry Carroll in the West and Robert Parish/Tree Rollins/Moses Malone in the East?

“I don’t think they can exploit his game,” Riley said. “It’s up to me to keep him as fresh as I can, but the more teams try to exploit him, the more trouble they will get in.

“I think Kareem is highly motivated and ready to play. I think he’ll be better in the playoffs than he was in the regular season. He’ll give us what he can give us. Just having him show up every night walking and breathing brings joy to my face.”

Moe’s poor-mouthing of the Nuggets’ chances brings a knowing smile to Riley’s face.

“Anybody who would believe that is a fool,” Riley said. “Doug is working the angle that he’ll put no pressure at all on his team, that there’s no (shame) in losing, that the only thing they can become is heroes.”

The Lakers realize, of course, that for all their regular-season success, there are plenty of people that predict they’ll be carried out on their shields. Many of those people live in Dallas, which beat the Lakers three straight in the regular season.

“I don’t mind,” Magic Johnson said with a sigh. “They’ve been waiting for us to fall ever since I’ve been here.”

Riley wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We’re not the favorites,” he said, “and we shouldn’t be the favorites. The Celtics are the champions, Dallas beat us three out of five, and we’re coming back from losing last season.

“If people are waiting for the other shoe to drop, that’s OK. If people don’t believe in us, that will just make us stronger.

“But if we play to our potential and play hard, we’re going to be awfully tough to beat. This is a championship-caliber team.”

In Denver, Moe was singing the same song--at least until he finished his conference call by breaking into an off-color ditty about a young maiden lying in the grass, etc.

“It’s springtime, it’s springtime, it’s springtime so sweet,” Moe finished triumphantly.

For the Nuggets, make that short and sweet.

Playoff Notes

Denver forward Alex English, in his movie, “Amazing Grace and Chuck” plays a member of the Boston Celtics. Asked if he’d prefer to have his celluloid teammates, English said: “It would probably be different, but that’s fantasy. This is reality.” Although English acknowledges he’s never been on a bigger underdog in his career, he maintains that an upset of the Lakers isn’t out of the question. “I know people have written us off, everybody has written us off already,” he said. “But we’re basketball players like they are. We have to come in and play hard and do the things we do well.” Asked which Lakers besides Magic Johnson worried him, English ticked off about a half-dozen names, then said: “I don’t know if Wes Matthews worries me.” . . . The first round is best-of-five. The rest are best-of-seven. The conference semifinals and finals will be played in a 2-2-1-1-1 format; the league finals will go 2-3-2. . . . Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will be appearing in a record 16th season of postseason play, surpassing the record he shared with Dolph Schayes. Abdul-Jabbar holds playoff records for most games played, most field goals made and attempted, most blocked shots and most personal fouls. He needs 337 minutes to pass Wilt Chamberlain for most playoff minutes (7,559). . . . How much will rookie Billy Thompson play for the Lakers in the playoffs? “He’ll be a specialty player in specialty situations,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said. “Billy played extremely well in the five games against Denver. He’s had his best games against Denver. He’s best in unpredictable, chaotic situations where he can get offensive rebounds, blocked shots. They (the Nuggets) haven’t been able to block him out.” . . . Denver Coach Doug Moe said that the Nuggets will try to run with the Lakers, even though there have been times this season when he feared the Lakers would score 200 points. “We have to, we have no other choice,” Moe said. “If we don’t run, they’ll run anyway and get a lot of cheap baskets. If we run and the Lakers run and they play great, we get killed. But if we run and they run and they don’t play as great, miss a few shots, then we’ve got a chance. The problem is we don’t run as good as we used to. If we get to the point where we’re getting blown out, then maybe we’ll slow it down.” . . . Told that Moe had sung a song during his interview, Riley responded with a few bars, too--of a nursery rhyme. “That’s all I know these days,” said the father of a toddler. LAKERS vs. NUGGETS

Date Site Time GAME 1 Tonight Forum 7:30 p.m. GAME 2 Saturday Forum 12:30 p.m. GAME 3 April 29 Denver 7:30 p.m. GAME 4* May 1 Denver TBA GAME 5* May 3 Forum 12:30 p.m.

* if necessary. All times PDT.

Date Site Result Nov. 7 Forum Lakers 138, Nuggets 116 Jan. 7 Forum Lakers 147, Nuggets 109 Feb. 18 Denver Lakers 128, Nuggets 122 March 10 Forum Lakers 143, Nuggets 107 April 5 Denver Lakers 126, Nuggets 118