Lakers Hold Fast and Finally Break Jazz : They Quit Pulling Their Hair, Run Off Early With Game 7

As a remembrance of things past, Frank Layden’s parting gift to Pat Riley couldn’t have been any tackier: a souvenir comb so big that not even Mark Eaton has pockets big enough to hold it.

“When you’re in trouble,” the Utah coach said to Riley before embracing him Saturday afternoon, “just pull out this comb. It’s got lovely scenes of the Brigham Copper Mine, the Mormon Temple, Dinosaurland and the Flaming Gorge Reservoir.”

With the Utah Jazz finally out of his hair, Riley grinned and stuck the comb in the midst of his mousse. Someday, Riley might have a chance to take in the sights recommended by Layden, but not anytime soon. As usual, the Lakers placed all vacation plans on hold until June at the earliest by sending the Jazz packing, 109-98, in the seventh game of the NBA Western Conference semifinals.

The Lakers advance to the Western finals against the Dallas Mavericks, a series that begins at the Forum Monday night. But while Layden pointedly noted that after the Lakers’ romp in Game 1, most people dispatched the Jazz to the graveyard, Riley acknowledged just how close underdog Utah came to scaring the living daylights out of the defending National Basketball Assn. champions.

“I don’t think we’re going to play a better basketball team in the playoffs,” Riley said. “Somebody else is going to have to come hard to top that.”

There weren’t many people in the Forum Saturday who came any earlier than Magic Johnson, who walked in the door with the janitorial crew and in the same frame of mind: He was there to clean up the mess left by the Lakers’ 28-point loss in Game 6. And he let Byron Scott know early just how the Lakers were going to do it, too.

“Buck came to me and said, ‘You all just get out there because I’m going to be pushing it,’ ” said Scott, who hit his first seven shots and finished with a team-high 29 points. “Then James (Worthy) came to me and said, ‘B, let’s just run.’

“That’s all I needed to hear. That’s when I know they’re ready, when they’re saying things like that. Ever since I’ve been here, when we’ve been beaten that soundly, we’ve come back and done a number on the team that beat us. We’ve taken the challenge.”

No Laker--other than perhaps Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who again fought off a call for early retirement Saturday by freshly shaving his head, then blocking 4 shots, grabbing 6 rebounds and scoring 11 points--was faced with running a tougher gantlet than Johnson.

He found himself in the unprecedented position of playing second fiddle to another point guard, in this case, Utah’s John Stockton, who wound up with a record-setting playoff as he scored 31 points, handed out 20 assists and made 5 steals in Game 7. He also was being given fits by Utah’s other guard, Bobby Hansen, the human straitjacket.

If “What’s wrong with the Lakers,” was the No. 1 question being asked of Chick Hearn on his radio call-in show, “What’s wrong with Magic?” wasn’t far behind.

“I think he sort of felt that, he listened to that,” Riley said of the unfavorable comparisons made between Magic and Stockton. “While John Stockton is a great little guard and developing, wait till he gets to the point where Earvin Johnson is, when he has to worry about John Doe and Joe Blow 10 years from now. That’s a different kind of pressure . . . always being measured against someone else trying to knock him off.

“But isn’t it ironic that Earvin’s team always wins. That’s his greatness, that’s what it is.”

Johnson responded Saturday with his best game of the series, scoring 23 points, passing out 16 assists and grabbing 9 rebounds, 4 on the offensive boards. And just in time, he revived the dormant Laker running game, which had downshifted drastically in the presence of Utah’s 7-foot 4-inch Eaton.

“When I’m playing that type of game, I’m at my best--I’m aggressive and I’m into it,” Johnson said.

Yes, Johnson acknowledged, Eaton presented a unique problem in this series because of his Bunyanesque dimensions.

“He’s the only one,” Johnson said. “He just stands there and you can’t do much. The other games, that’s all we talked about, ‘Mark Eaton, Mark Eaton.’

“Today, we said, ‘He’s there, let’s just go at him.’ It was my job to get us started. If (my teammates) see me not taking it at him, they wouldn’t take it at him.”

The Lakers strung together four straight fast-break baskets in an 11-0 run in the first quarter that broke a 15-15 tie. And while the Jazz managed to stay within sight in the Lakers’ rear-view mirrors--Utah was still within 73-67 with 3:50 left in the third quarter--the Lakers may finally have succeeded in wearing down the Utah iron men. Layden said Laker assistant Bill Bertka told him afterward that was the Laker plan.

“Earvin was the biggest key to the fast break,” said Worthy, who came back from his career playoff low of 4 points in Game 6 to score 23 on Saturday, “but we were all guilty of not pushing ourselves through the fatigue, pushing ourselves up and down the court.

“We may have thought we were running, but we must have been just jogging.”

It was more like a relay race in the first quarter, when Abdul-Jabbar blocked a shot by Eaton, then passed the baton to Worthy, who stole a pass from Thurl Bailey and sent A.C. Green away on the break. Green went to the basket without full control of the ball, but somehow he shoveled in a bank shot, was fouled and made the free throw, giving the Lakers an 18-15 edge.

Hansen--who made 10 of 11 shots in Game 6 but was 6 of 19 Saturday--missed a three-pointer, Magic grabbed the rebound and passed to Worthy, who fed Scott for a flying two-handed jam. Layden called time out, but Hansen lost the ball on a drive, and it was pinball (bing, bing, bing) once again: Scott to Magic to Worthy for another dunk.

Karl Malone, who led all scorers with 31 points, threw up an airball into the hands of Green, and moments later Magic lofted a long pass to Scott, who barreled down the left wing, this time for a one-handed jam. Layden called another timeout, but Hansen missed two free throws and then Johnson blew past him for a left-handed drive that ended the 11-0 run.

“How many teams can hold the champions from running for six games?” Malone said. “Didn’t you know they’d break out after a while?”

The Jazz, however, didn’t break, due primarily to Stockton, who shattered the playoff record for assists in a series with 111, 16 more than Magic’s record set in the 1984 final against Boston, and also set a record for steals with 28, one more than Philadelphia’s Maurice Cheeks pilfered against San Antonio in 1979.

But this time, the Lakers made the plays that rebuffed any Jazz ideas of a comeback. After Abdul-Jabbar blocked a shot by Stockton, Worthy dived to the floor to retrieve the loose ball at midcourt. He knocked it to Johnson, who gunned a pass to Scott, who buried a three-pointer from the right corner.

That was late in the second quarter, which ended with the Lakers ahead, 57-51. By the end of the third quarter, the Lakers had doubled that lead. It was 75-67 when Magic rebounded a miss by Mychal Thompson and slipped a pass to Thompson for the short jumper that made it a 10-point margin.

Cooper hit one of his two three-pointers, off a dish by Magic, and a Johnson drive made it 82-71. After another Malone airball, Thompson made the outlet pass to Cooper, who got it to Worthy, who scored before being knocked into the press table by Stockton. The subsequent free throw made it 85-73, and after Stockton scored, Johnson’s driving basket ended the third quarter.

Johnson followed his own miss for the first basket of the final period, and Thompson took a shovel pass from Kurt Rambis for the jam that made it 91-75. The Jazz was done, but hardly forgotten. Layden’s comb saw to that.

“I think the Lakers are going to go all the way,” Layden said, “but we can chalk up that we were contenders and lost to the best.”

Said Malone: “We showed we can play with anybody. A lot of people look at the Lakers and they’re shell-shocked. They’re beaten already.

“We saw the Lakers and said, ‘So what?’ We took it to seven games, and we had a chance to win. Look how close we came.”

Close enough to make the Lakers glad their scalps are still intact.

Laker Notes

Coach Frank Layden acknowledged that he’s uncertain whether he’ll return to the Jazz, even though he’s under contract for another five seasons with the team. There have been clashes with management over his ongoing battle with National Basketball Assn. officials, and he also is feeling vastly underappreciated in Utah. “I don’t know what my future is, I’ve gotten myself in a hole with all those fines,” Layden said. “Some people are unhappy with me, the way I do things. If I quit, do you think I could get a Lite Beer commercial? Or maybe, I could go to CBS, take (Jimmy the) Greek’s place. I’d attack the Swedes, or somebody like that. I’d be smarter than (the Greek). So what if you got the Swedes ticked off?” . . . Michael Cooper, on watching the Boston Celtics tie their series against Atlanta in Game 6: “It kind of fired me up. The Celtics were taking care of business. I know they were sitting at home today, saying, ‘Well, it’s the Lakers’ turn.” . . . A limited number of tickets for the first two games of the Dallas-Laker series will go on sale at the Forum box office this morning. Numbered stubs will be given out at random at 8 a.m., and tickets will go on sale at 9. There will be a four-tickets-per-person limit.