Lakers Lose Game and Series to Nuggets : Lead Over Celtics for Best Record Down to 2 After 120-106 Loss

That latest NBA fad, Laker bashing, already a fan favorite from Sacramento to Salt Lake City and Phoenix to Portland, Wednesday night swept through McNichols Arena here, where the Denver Nuggets have embraced the trend more enthusiastically than anyone.

The Nuggets, who already owned two last-second wins over the Lakers, this time skewered the defending champions, 120-106, for their 50th win of the season and third in five meetings over the Lakers, becoming the only Western Conference team to win a season series over Los Angeles in 1987-88.

And while the Laker cushion for home-court playoff advantage is not yet a pancake, it’s fast resembling a souffle--puncture it just right, and it could collapse before their eyes.

That wasn’t Larry Bird standing behind the Laker bench, taunting them while Alex English (29 points), Fat Lever (28) and Michael Adams (22) ran up the score for the Nuggets Wednesday night. It was just a fan, who wore Bird’s jersey and bore a facial resemblance. But it was as good a reminder as any that the Boston Celtics--winners of eight in a row--are just two games behind the Lakers for what has shockingly become a race to the league’s best overall record.

“Both teams are watching,” Magic Johnson acknowledged after the Lakers’ fourth straight loss on the road and eighth in their last 14 games away from home. This one came without Byron Scott, who missed his first game of the season with a strained neck.

“We’re watching them, they’re watching us,” said Johnson, whose 11th triple-double (14 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists) camouflaged what in actuality was an exercise in frustration.

“They’re two down with six to go. The pressure is on both teams.”

Both the Lakers and Celtics have six games left. Both have four on the road, two at home. The Lakers play Phoenix at home Friday, then take a week-long trip in which they will face Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Phoenix before returning home for a season-ender against Golden State.

The Celtics have home-and-home games with Chicago, play Detroit in Boston Garden, and visit Cleveland, Washington and Atlanta.

Any combination of four Laker wins and Celtic losses will give Los Angeles a home-court advantage.

“If I were Boston and looking at our schedule, I would have been looking at our games against Portland and Denver,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said. “If they had been three games down going into the last week, I think they would have figured there was no way they could do it.

“Now I think we’ve given them great life. We’ve given them hope. We could lose something we really worked hard for. And that would be a shame.”

It hasn’t happened yet, but you can be sure they’re plotting that scenario on Causeway Street in Boston.

“They’re watching us so closely,” Mychal Thompson said, “that they can see all the way to L.A. without a TV set or binoculars.”

Forget, for a moment, about such nuances as home-court advantage. The bigger question is whether the Lakers--who have gone 8-9 in their last 17 games--can become their former dominating selves. They looked that way for a quarter Wednesday night, when they shot a blistering 68.2% and were even at 32, but faded rapidly thereafter. Playing on back-to-back nights without Scott, and with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fighting for every breath in the thin altitude, and with 19 turnovers, coupled with 10 Nugget steals and 9 Nugget blocks, the Lakers offered only token resistence to what is currently the NBA’s hottest team.

Denver has won 12 of its last 13 and is 28-10 in its last 38. The Lakers were still within six, 85-79, after three quarters, but after just 4:42 of the final period, the Denver lead had exploded to 16. Jay Vincent scored nine points, English four and Adams threw in a three-pointer--his second of the night, which extended his record long-distance streak to 38 straight games--during that 18-8 run.

“Denver was absolutely magnificent. Period,” Riley said. “If you’re trying to break down what happened to us, nothing happened to us but Denver doing a great job. . . . They wore us down. That was obvious. We just got hammered all night. “

The Nuggets are involved in a battle for playoff positioning: They’re a half-game behind Dallas for the conference’s second-best record, with Portland two games behind Denver.

“They’re playing for second place, and an edge at home, the chance to make a statement,” Riley said. “They caught us on the right night, and did a number on us.

“Until we find our championship heart again, we’re going to continue to struggle.”

Time would appear to be running out, but Riley disagrees.

“The team has to look at this as a time of adversity, and react like warriors,” he said, and he didn’t mean that team in Oakland.

Does he have reason to believe that will happen?

“Sure I do,” Riley said. “I believe in them. I know who they are. We’re out of sync, the chemistry, but we’ll do better. We’ll get there--as long as there are no debilitating injuries.”

For now, there are just the nagging ones, the ones that have sidelined Scott, Johnson and Cooper, the kind that Worthy (who had just 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting) is trying to play through. If any player needs a rest, Riley said, it’s Worthy.

Scott took part in pregame warmups but said whenever he came down from his shot, the impact jarred his neck. He decided it wasn’t worth risking further injury.

“Byron could go this way,” Riley said, turning his neck from side to side, “but I’d never put in a guy who couldn’t do this (nodding his head up and down).”

Johnson said he is only 80% back from his groin injury. Can he--and the Lakers--make it all the way back. He nodded his head slowly.

“You sense that this team will break through,” he said. “That’s what we have to focus on.”