THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : LOS ANGELES LAKERS vs. DETROIT PISTONS : Did This Really Happen?

Stop the series, I want to get off. Who were those guys? What do they want from us? Will they hurt us? Do they take hostages? If we pay them extra, will they leave us alone? Please, mommy, make them go away.

Somebody call Federal Express. Have them send us the Boston Celtics, overnight, and hurry. We can handle them. Somebody call the Inglewood cops. The mob has sent us hit men from Detroit. We can only assume our Lakers will be seen or heard from again. Jimmy Hoffa wasn’t.

The Lakers went down like Thomas Hearns. They never knew what hit them. Kareem’s hook had nothing behind it. James Worthy went down like a ton of gold bullion. Pat Riley only played seven people. I’m fairly sure the other five were afraid to go in there. You go in. No, you go in.

The only thing fabulous at the Forum Tuesday night was the Pistons. They microwaved and snacked on the Lakers, 105-93, in Game 1 of pro basketball’s finals, before a packed (make that panicked) house. Cooked them up like a kettle of Orville Redenbacher. Overpowered ‘em and devoured ‘em. Frazzled ‘em and dazzled ‘em.

These were not the Lakers we had come to know and love. These were the Indiana Pacers, in clever disguises. We found the real Lakers later, bound and gagged in their lockers. That couldn’t have been Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Byron Scott and Michael Cooper out there, missing all those shots. Must have been impostors. Celebrity impersonators. Evil twins. Exact duplicates, from pods.

Something was definitely amiss. Matter of fact, everything was a miss. Everything the Lakers put up. This game certainly should be reported, but not by reporters. It should be reported to local authorities, like a crime. This was clearly foul play. Phew. Real foul play.

There was a suspicious-looking cowboy in the Laker locker room afterward. Maybe he was responsible for hog-tying the Lakers.

Nope, it was just ol’ Don Carter, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, moseying into the room to say howdy.

“Boy, I’ll tell ya, the Lakers aren’t that bad,” Carter said. “Never seen ‘em that flat.”

Too bad they didn’t go that flat against the Mavericks, eh, pardner?

“Yes, sir,” Carter said. “But, I still want ‘em to win the conference. I’m still pullin’ for ‘em to win the conference.”

Thanks loads, pard, but we already done won the conference.

Tryin’ to win the championship, now, but it looks like a hard ride. The Pistons have come to play. Their knees weren’t knocking. They brought out their shooters and ran like looters. They had a husky and hungry look. For the Lakers, Thursday’s Game 2 has gone from nice-to-win to need-to-win. Games 3, 4 and 5 will be played in Piston country, and all we want now is for Riley to be like Frank Buck, and bring ‘em back alive.

What got into the Lakers? Besides Detroit hands in their faces, that is.

“Kind of embarrassing out there,” Scott said. “I think they just outhustled us. They were working harder than us, and when you work hard, good things happen.”

Were the Lakers that bad, or were the Pistons that good?

“They played good. I don’t think they played great,” Scott said. “They probably feel they can play better. We know we can play better.”

They’d better play better.

Any worse and Chuck Daly’s going to be in a downtown plaza next week, guaranteeing a repeat in 1989.

The first thing the Lakers must do is do something about Adrian Dantley. There are two possible solutions. (1) Make a trade and get him back. Or (2) double-team him and give A.C. Green some help. A.D. taught A.C. the ABCs of how to play offense.

Green said: “He plays like (Mark) Aguirre, except he takes it to the hoop more. At different times, I got caught out of position, or caught off my feet. We have to help out more. We have to play better defense, and there’s nothing else to be said. Play better defense.”

Riley agreed, and so did his assistant coaches. Bill Bertka said: “We tried three different things on Dantley, and none of them worked. It was like they knew everything we were doing before we did it.”

Aha. Spies. More foul play.

Assistant coach Randy Pfund said: “I don’t think they they did anything different. I just know that we’d better do something different.”

Yeah. About 13 points different.

Abdul-Jabbar can help there. When Captain Hook gets you 8 points, 2 rebounds and 1 assist, and doesn’t shoot a free throw all night, you’re lucky to lose by only 12. You’re lucky the Pistons aren’t out there playing Walker D. Russell, Chuck Nevitt and volunteers from the audience by then.

“Kareem won’t be remembered as a Hall of Fame performer for the night he went 4 of 13, that’s for sure,” Pfund said.

That wasn’t the real Kareem. The real Kareem really plays in the playoffs. The real Kareem rises to the top. Just as the real Cooper turns super-duper. Just as the real Scott gets hot. Who were those guys out there Tuesday night? C’mon, give us our real team back. Call 911. Check Missing Persons. If they’re only missing for 24 hours, everything’s probably OK. If they’re missing for 48 hours, check the lake. The Lakers might be back, or they might be sunk.