1987 NBA PLAYOFFS : Floored in Boston, Lakers Return : After Two Losses in Garden, L.A. Back on Familiar Ground

After being waxed on Boston Garden oak, it’s back to Forum white maple.

You want parquet around here, check out the dairy counter of your local grocery store, and watch your spelling. Here, the wood grains all run the same way.

Dead spots? Well, the corner of Manchester and Prairie isn’t exactly jumping at 3 in the morning. But bounce a ball off any spot on the Forum floor--built, incidentally, about 20 years ago by Robbins Floor, a division of Cincinnati Flooring--and it bounces right back the same way.

And although there may be a lot of strange-looking people cruising Hollywood Boulevard, it’s been years since anyone has made the scene dressed as a leprechaun--except for that one guy with the green spiked hair and Larry Bird T-shirt.

The point is, the Lakers are home now, and the Boston Celtics are not.

And in the National Basketball Assn. finals, the point appears to be this: The team that gets to sleep in its own beds wins nearly every time. Dear Abby, would you kindly explain?

Pat Riley certainly can’t.

“It’s a mystery to me,” he said from about 35,000 feet above Southern California Friday morning, on a jet carrying the Lakers back home after a two-loss, one-win trip to Boston.

“I don’t know what it is.”

Oh, sure, Riley said, he has believed in the home-court advantage ever since 1961, when he was playing for Linton High in Schenectady, N.Y. A team from New York City, Power Memorial Academy, came up for a game, with a ninth-grade marvel by the name of Lew Alcindor. That was Riley’s first encounter with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

“Teddy Brennan fouled Kareem out in eight minutes,” Riley recalled proudly. “We won, 74-68.”

But never in his experience, he said, has he seen a floor tilt a game so much in favor of a home team as it has in this series.

At the Forum for Games 1 and 2, the Lakers were being measured for posterity and the Celtics were being sized for caskets.

At the Boston Garden for Games 3, 4 and 5, the Lakers--Magic Johnson and Michael Cooper excluded--played liked that other team from Los Angeles, and the Celtics went from five easy pieces (apologies to Jack Nicholson) to the World’s Greatest Starting Five (capital letters courtesy of Friday morning’s Boston Globe).

In Inglewood, the Lakers left tire tracks on Celtic jerseys. In Boston, the Celtics actually had more fast-break points than the Lakers Thursday night, 39-30.

In Inglewood, Laker guard Byron Scott scored 20 points in Game 1 and 24 in Game 2. In Boston, Scott shot 26% in three games.

In Inglewood, Celtic guard Danny Ainge scored 11 points in Game 1 and 6 points in Game 2. In Boston, Ainge torched the Lakers with five three-pointers Thursday night.

In Inglewood, the Lakers shot 55.6% in Game 1, a stunning 61.5% in Game 2. In Boston, the Lakers couldn’t break 50% in three games.

Need we go on?

Riley didn’t.

“It’s soap opera-ish,” he said. “It’s been unlike any series I’ve been in. It’s just bizarre. And we’ve been here so many times.”

But now, the Lakers are home and, by sneaking one victory out of Boston, they’re back with a 3-2 lead in the series and need just one more win to close out the Celtics.

They’ll get their first chance Sunday in Game 6 (12:30 p.m., Channel 2). Failing that, it will come down to Game 7 Tuesday night.

“It’s our home, our fans,” said Cooper, who plans to play Sunday despite a sprained right knee.

“And we’re going to need all our fans. They hoped we wouldn’t be back, but unfortunately we’re back, and we need ‘em.”

The Boston crowds, Cooper said, played a definite role in the Celtics’ wins.

“They were what you call ‘livid,’ ” Cooper said.

Besides the crowd, what are the differences he sees between the Garden and the Forum?

“Here, the ball bounces up a little higher on every dribble,” Cooper said. “The rims are about the same, but here we’ve got air-conditioning.

“That’s always a pleasure. Here, you’re sweating because you’re working hard, not because it’s so bleeping hot.”

That’s not all that makes the Forum cool, Mychal Thompson said.

“The lighting will be better, just from all the glitter of the celebrities here,” said Thompson, when asked why he’ll be glad to be back in the Forum.

“But hey, a floor’s a floor,” he said, pooh-poohing the home-is-everything notion. “Winners make adjustments. They have to adapt.”

That, however, is something the Lakers didn’t do in Boston, Riley said.

“Those seven days in Boston were a killer for me,” he said. “ . . . It was a distracting week for us. I don’t think we accomplished much, other than to play three games.”

While airborne, Riley had watched a replay of Thursday’s game on a portable videotape machine.

“I saw more than anything else--and I know you’re going to laugh at this--but I saw a lack of energy,” Riley said. “I didn’t see enough second and third efforts.

“The last 14 minutes of Game 4 were far and away our best basketball in the playoffs, in terms of a sustained drive, coming from behind. We were really up.

“But the other games have been like an instant replay.”

Riley said he suspected that the Lakers would be in trouble for Game 5 during that day’s shoot-around.

“I didn’t sense a seriousness,” he said. “I didn’t sense the same thing we had before Game 1 and Game 2. I thought at first, ‘This is great, we might go out nice and loose.’ We had been tight the first couple of games (in Boston).

“But I think we played exactly like the series was. We were comfortable with a 2-0 lead, and we played like that.

“Thursday, it was 3-1 and we played comfortable again, like we had a cushion game. Even though we talked about it, we played it like a cushion game.

“I hope it doesn’t come back and bite us in the butt.”

The Celtics, meanwhile, flew into LAX Friday evening. After last week’s disastrous stay here, Larry Bird said that some of his teammates played well only in front of their wives and girlfriends.

That being the case, he was asked, why don’t the Celtics bring them along?

“Whatever it takes,” Bird said with a shrug. “I’ll even pay their way, if that’s what it takes.”

What did Kevin McHale think of Bird’s offer?

No thanks, he said.

“I wouldn’t get any rest,” the Celtic forward said.

“I usually play better on the road, because I can get my sleep. There’s nobody poking my eyes and saying, ‘Daddy, wake up.’ ”

Cooper just wants the Lakers to awaken to the realization of what’s at stake Sunday.

“I don’t know why everybody’s making such a big deal (of the Lakers’ two losses),” he said. “We did what we had to do, go get a ballgame. We did our job.

“Now we’re back home, for the sixth and seventh games of a world championship. That’s what it’s all about.”