Lakers Can Grin and Win : Losing Streak Ends; Cooper Is Back; Magic Pact to Be Reworked

If there was ever a night for a Smile Off competition between the Laker guards, Monday was it.

Magic Johnson, as usual, would have been the winner, even if he didn’t play in the Lakers’ 115-105 win over the New Jersey Nets before another sellout of 17,505 at the Forum.

Johnson, who has missed the Lakers’ last 11 quarters because of a groin pull, said that he will have an announcement--perhaps by the end of the week, no later than next Monday--that his $25-million contract with the Lakers has been restructured. That should mean much more cash up front for Johnson, who has enlisted the help of a top-line entertainment agent--”bigger than (Ed) Hookstratten,” he said with a smile--to work out a new deal with Laker owner Jerry Buss.

The runner-up smile to Johnson’s would have been Michael Cooper’s, although Cooper said his pleasure at returning after missing a dozen games with a sprained ankle was tempered by the Lakers’ waiving of forward Ray Tolbert. Tolbert didn’t play much--only 82 minutes in 43 games, 29 of which he observed in their entirety from the bench--but someday he can tell his grandchildren that the Lakers were 37-6 while he was on the team.

“That time off affected his brain,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said jokingly of Cooper, who scored 4 points in 27 minutes. “He came off the bench and thought he was a shooter.

“After he missed his first two shots, I said, ‘Coop, get a layup first, a wide-open layup. You’re a defensive player.’ ”

Byron Scott would have finished third, for the simple reason that it was nice to have someone else to share the load with. Scott scored 21 points and, for the second straight game, dished off 10 assists, matching his career high. Asked how he would rate Cooper’s return, Scott smiled and said:

“I’d give him a ‘B.’ His shot was off a little bit, but I expected that. It’s been off so long, anyway.”

And all the Laker guards--including Wes Matthews, who bounced back from a sub-par effort in Saturday night’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks to hand out 11 assists to go along with his 9 points in 25 minutes, and rookie Milt Wagner (7 points and 5 assists in 13 minutes)--couldn’t help but share a chuckle at the plight of Net rookie guard Ricky Wilson, who took one of the season’s most memorable shots.

With the Lakers ahead, 100-85, with 4:37 to play, Wilson stole a pass from Cooper in the Lakers’ front court, dribbled down alone for an uncontested layup--and missed. Badly. How badly?

“Ridiculous,” Scott said. “If it had been me, I would have just kept running off the court and into the locker room.”

Willis Reed, the former New York Knicks great who took over as Net coach on Feb. 29, had a little more compassion for his first-year player out of George Mason University.

“When we came into the locker room after the game,” Reed said, “I asked him if he wanted a videotape of the shot. He said no.”

Said Wilson: “Why would I want a videotape?”

There’s a chance that come morning, there won’t be a videotape to be found. In the Forum crowd Monday night was that famous destroyer of evidence herself, Fawn Hall, hand in hand with--no, silly, not Ollie North--Rob Lowe.

Not all was humor and light for the Lakers, even though they did end a two-game losing streak. For one thing, there’s the matter of traveling to Portland today for a game against the Trail Blazers, who are merely the hottest team in the league with an eight-game winning streak.

For another, there’s the fact that the Nets--a team that has the worst record (16-46) in the Eastern Conference and has won just 3 games in 32 on the road--were very much in this game for nearly three quarters.

The Nets were ahead, 59-58, at the end of the first half. They had outrebounded the Lakers, 20-10, limiting the home team to exactly one rebound off the offensive glass.

“I was encouraged that we could play against some guys at least a half,” Reed said. “Now we’ve got to play a third quarter against someone.”

The Lakers righted that discrepancy in the second half--they finished ahead of the Nets, 34-33, even though no Laker had more rebounds than Kurt Rambis’ six--but Riley still wasn’t happy.

“We started out the season leading the league in rebounding for the first month,” Riley said, “and we’ve dropped off steadily since. To me, that’s a bad sign.

“It’s an area we have to be consistent in, and we’re not doing it. We’ve got to get more rebounding from Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar), more consistent rebounding from James Worthy. Last week, against Dallas, New York and Philadelphia, Earvin Johnson averaged about a dozen rebounds.

“If our guards are getting half our rebounds, then we’re in trouble.”

Riley did, however, concede that the Lakers may be fighting the ennui that sets in during a regular season that no longer has anything at stake.

“The team has been so good for so long,” he said. “Now we’re looking around the league at everybody else making their moves.

“We’ve got to get out of the blocks again. This period we’re in now, I don’t want it to go on for more than another week. With 12 or 13 games to go, we’ve got to start our drive into the playoffs. Maybe tonight (Portland) will be the challenge we need.”