Lakers’ Weekend in Santa Barbara Is Anything but a Short Vacation

By noon, the line of fans stretched from the Santa Barbara City College gym to the Pacific Ocean, which is just a three-point shot away.

The fans were there because a Santa Barbara newspaper and TV station reported that 2,000 free tickets would be distributed for a Lakers’ intrasquad scrimmage Friday night.

However, as it turned out, many of the fans waited for up to three hours in vain. The Santa Barbara News-Press estimated that 1,000 fans were turned away.

Only 60 tickets were made available to the fans who began lining up early Friday morning. The rest of the tickets were handed out by college athletic department officials to local high school students, boys’ clubs, and the college’s booster club, faculty and staff.

“Basically, you had to know somebody to get a ticket,” said a fan seated behind the press table.

Frank Carbajal, SBCC basketball coach, told the News-Press: “We made some errors. I don’t feel very good about hurting people’s feelings. The crowd mushroomed.”

The fans who made it inside the packed gym were wild about the Lakers. One young fan wore a purple wig and a purple Laker T-shirt. Even Laker trainer Gary Vitti received an ovation when he walked onto the court.

When Magic Johnson led the Lakers onto the court, the fans responded with a standing ovation and chants of “Beat Boston.”

“The Lakers are going to work as hard as they can so that they’ll beat Boston ,” said Laker broadcaster Chick Hearn, who served as the public address announcer for the scrimmage.

The crowd impressed the Lakers.

“I wish we could have a (National Basketball Assn.) team up here,” Laker forward Mychal Thompson said. “I’ve never been here before, but I think this would be an ideal setting for an NBA team if they had an arena.”

The Lakers, idle since Monday, when they wrapped up the NBA Western Conference title by sweeping the Seattle SuperSonics, opened a three-day minicamp here to prepare for the championship series, which begins Tuesday at the Forum against the winner of today’s Boston Celtics-Detroit Pistons game.

“We decided to come up here two days ago,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said. “We wanted to get out of that mental mellowness that L.A. produces.”

But it was no day at the beach for the Lakers, who are staying at a beachfront hotel.

The Lakers will watch today’s Boston-Detroit game and then practice at 4 p.m. They will practice again Sunday before heading home.

The Lakers were divided into two teams--purple and gold--for the scrimmage, with Billy Thompson held out because of a knee injury. They played four 10-minute periods.

Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper, James Worthy, Byron Scott and Mychal Thompson made up the gold squad. Kurt Rambis, Mike Smrek, A.C. Green, Adrian Branch and Wes Matthews made up the purple team. However, Cooper and Matthews switched teams at halftime.

The purple team led by as many as 15 points in the fourth quarter before Riley stopped the game to practice end-of-the-game situations.

Scott led all scorers with 26 points, followed by Rambis with 25, Johnson with 23 and Green with 22.

Worthy had 18, Matthews 17 and Abdul-Jabbar and Branch 14 each.

Rambis and Matthews, who haven’t played much during the playoffs, were impressive in the scrimmage.

“Wes might give us a good shot in the arm for the series,” Riley said. “If we play Detroit, he matches up well against Isiah (Thomas).”

Said Matthews: “Riley knows I’m ready. If I continue to do well (in practice), I’m sure he’ll go with me.”

The players thought the scrimmage went well.

“We needed that game feeling, and this brought it back,” Johnson said. “It was good to get in a game-type situation. This is going to help us Tuesday.

“I think we’ve got that sharpness back and we’ll be ready.”

Said Abdul-Jabbar: “We’ve never done this before, but I don’t think it’s had any negative effect.”

Said Riley: “I think this was really needed. I kept telling them that I wasn’t satisfied, but I could see that they were constantly working it up a notch.”