Magic Is Up to His Old Tricks : He Scores 31 Points as Lakers Beat Suns, Do Number on Celtics

The kind of week it has been for the Lakers, they didn’t mind that the biggest ovation of the night Friday at the Forum was for a spectator, Muhammad Ali. The kind of week it has been, they really didn’t mind being taken to the wire by the Phoenix Suns, a team that has won just 6 of 39 games on the road, before pulling out a 117-114 win.

By several important yardsticks, this game represented progress for the Lakers, whose 58th win brought them within two games of their fourth straight 60-win season. That would be a first for any National Basketball Assn. team.

And with Boston losing to Cleveland, the Lakers’ magic number for clinching home-court advantage for the playoffs is now two. Any combination of Laker wins and Boston losses will ensure that a seventh game in the finals, should one be needed, would take place here.

The Lakers, despite their recent travails, considered those numbers academic. More important to them Friday was that James Worthy, who did not play, got some rest for his aching knees, and Michael Cooper showed signs of breaking out of his shooting slump with three three-pointers.

Most important of all, Magic Johnson was able to look in the mirror afterward and see someone he recognized, rather than an on-again, off-again guard struggling to regain stride after being hobbled by a strained groin.

Johnson was the maestro of Friday’s dramatic finish, scoring 10 of the Lakers’ last 12 points and grabbing the rebound of Jeff Hornacek’s rushed shot at the end. Johnson finished with 31 points--his first 30-plus game since Jan. 24--and had 15 assists and 7 rebounds.

“This is my game,” Johnson said of his stretch run. “I was happy. I realized, ‘Yeah, OK, I see some signs of me coming back.’

“The last couple of games I was getting there but not converting. That comes from not playing. Tonight, I converted.”

So, at a critical moment, did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who will start his 41st birthday today with an early-morning flight to Houston, where the Lakers play the Rockets Sunday. The Laker center, who had 22 points, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks, blew out the Suns’ candles with a skyhook with 28 seconds left that gave the Lakers a 115-114 lead.

Since last Saturday, the Lakers had been blown out in Portland, struggled to beat the Trail Blazers here, and got their heads handed to them in Denver. Byron Scott strained his neck, Worthy was limping like Fred Sanford (Mychal Thompson’s description), and A.C. Green was playing with a severe hip-pointer. And while Johnson was racking up consecutive triple doubles, it was obvious that he was nowhere near optimum levels.

It follows, then, that neither was the team. Broadcaster Chick Hearn went so far as to suggest on his pregame show that if the Lakers continued at their present rate, they wouldn’t get past San Antonio in the first round of the playoffs.

Friday night, at least, the Lakers showed Hearn that it was safe to come out of the refrigerator. They looked especially sharp in the second quarter when consecutive three-pointers by Cooper--1 for 13 from three-point range in his last five games and 7 for 37 overall--ignited a 12-0 Laker run that carried them to a 53-45 lead.

Cooper’s double three’s were followed by a trio of Laker fast breaks, the first two finished off with jams by Thompson and Abdul-Jabbar, the last by a pullup jumper by Scott, who was sufficiently recovered from his neck pains to score 25 points, 18 in the first half.

The Suns, who were trying to keep alive their longshot chances of landing the last playoff spot in the West, rallied against the Laker reserves to take the lead in the final quarter behind their Johnsons, Eddie (30 points) and rookie Kevin (18 points, 12 assists). Riley was forced to send Abdul-Jabbar and Magic back in, but by that time the Suns were in a basket-matching mode. They couldn’t quite match Johnson, however, who began his final push with a driving basket to put the Lakers up by one point, 107-106.

He followed with a free throw, then took a feed from Thompson for a lay-in to make it 110-108. Kevin Johnson tied it with a jumper, but after Cooper rebounded a miss by another Sun rookie, Armon Gilliam, Magic went coast-to-coast to make it 112-110.

Kevin Johnson answered again with two free throws to tie it with 1:19 left, but Magic made the first of two free throws to put the Lakers ahead again. Gilliam rolled in an 8-footer with 46 seconds remaining for the Suns’ last lead of the night, as Abdul-Jabbar plucked a pass from Cooper off his shoetops and cut across the lane for his skyhook, his only basket of the fourth quarter.