In the End, Lakers Found Wanting

Who wanted it more? That’s what this thing was supposed to be about. Who wanted it more? That’s what Pat Riley, Chuck Daly and basket cases everywhere wanted to know. Needed to know. Demanded to know. Who wanted it more? The princes or the paupers? The monarchs from Los Angeles, proud keepers of the castle? Or the revolutionaries from Detroit, eager to enter the magic kingdom at last?

Well, we sure did find out who wanted Game 5 of the National Basketball Assn. Finals more, didn’t we? We found out the hard way. One minute we were watching the Lakers leading, 15-2. A hundred-odd minutes later we were watching the Lakers bleeding, 104-94. Who wanted it more? The Pistons wanted it more. They wanted it, and they got it.

But hey . . .

They don’t have it all. They do need one more, remember. You haven’t seen the last of the Los Angeles Lakers. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Relax. Take a deep breath. They’ll still be playing some basketball this Sunday at the Fabulous Forum, your neighborhood house of worship. Fat lady ain’t sung yet. Barry ain’t done dancing yet. Don’t cremate the Lakers, undertakers. Just because their eyes are closed doesn’t mean they’re dead.

Before Thursday night’s Pontiac Silverdome going-out-of-business, all-opponents-must-go promotion, you would have sworn that the champions wanted Game 5 more than the challengers did. You could see it in their eyes. You could see it in the way they sat there in the Laker locker room, strictly business, studies of concentration, as silent as meditating Buddhists. You could see it as soon as the tipoff, as the score zipped to 2-zip, 4-zip, 6-zip, 8-zip, 10-zip, 12-zip.

Did the home boys from Detroit look as though they wanted it this badly? Hardly. Some of them didn’t even look in much of a hurry to get to the game. John (Spider) Salley pulled into the parking lot in his 1962 Thunderbird convertible--the one with the paper cutout of Magic Johnson, webbed by a giant spider, on the rear window--at 7:45 p.m. for a 9 o’clock game. Rick Mahorn’s black Jeep rolled in around 15 minutes later. They were fashionably late for the last tango in Pontiac.

Preparation for a must game is a sore subject in Detroit. When the hockey-playing Red Wings faced an urgent date in the Stanley Cup playoffs, some of them played hooky at a local saloon before the game. Piston backers, who turned out in record numbers, wanted and expected their basketball representatives to report for duty ready, willing and able. That 12-0 start put about 41,000 of 41,732 customers in shock.

Little did they know what would happen next. Little did they suspect that the Lakers would start fouling and fouling up free throws. Never in a million years did they expect Magic Johnson to miss 11 of 15 shots. Nothing in the world prepared them for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar making more than one-fourth of L.A.’s points, or for Mychal Thompson accounting for one-fourth of L.A.’s remaining baskets, after he reported into the game.

This game got to be 15-2-- fifteen to two! --and who wanted it more?

Not the Lakers.

“Fifteen to two isn’t crap!” Pat Riley screamed at them when they huddled after disorganized Detroit called a timeout. The Lakers’ coach warned them, cajoled them, pleaded with them to stay hungry. “Don’t let them get back in the game!” Riley yelled. “Get tougher and tougher! Don’t let them get back in the game!”

They let them get back in the game.

One minute, Chuck Daly was wondering: “Are we ever going to score?”

Next minute, Pat Riley was wondering: “Why am I wasting my voice?”

They didn’t play like the Lakers anymore. They didn’t even look like the Lakers anymore. Abdul-Jabbar was shooting 17-foot jump shots. Johnson was flinging left-handed hooks. Adrian Dantley was being guarded in the second quarter by . . . Tony Campbell. Michael Cooper kept aiming jump shots that, instead of hitting nothing but net, kept netting nothing.

And then, there was that free-throw shooting. Of all the miserable times to start making Dennis Rodman resemble Rick Barry. Fourteen free throws, the Lakers missed. Ten lousy points, they lost this game by. For some reason, we have a vision of Pat Riley scrawling a memo with a piece of chalk: Free throw practice, 10 a.m., Forum. Be there .

Riley must find out in a serious hurry how much the Lakers want to rule the empire of basketball. So far, whatever they do, the Pistons keep one-upping them. Magic bloodies Bill Laimbeer’s nose. James Edwards bops Magic’s nose. Magic gets the flu. Isiah Thomas gets a bad back. Magic produces his mom and dad. Isiah’s wife produces a son. You worry sometimes that Salley and Mahorn might take the floor Sunday wearing goggles.

The Lakers looked as though they wanted it. They looked lean and hungry. They looked ready to rock and roll. “We were focused. We were focused. We were very focused,” Riley said, almost as if reciting a mantra.

The next thing they focused on was the bus to the airport.

But hey . . .

They don’t hold Game 6 just so CBS can fill time before “60 Minutes.” They hold Game 6 because the series isn’t over yet. They hold Game 6 because the Lakers still have a chance to win. They hold Game 6 because if the Lakers take Game 6, then the series continues, and if we’re all good little boys and girls, we get to see Game 7.

“It’s on our shoulders,” Riley said. “The buck stops in Los Angeles.”

Everybody wants bucks. Trouble is, you have to do more than just want them.

You have to earn them.