THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : LOS ANGELES LAKERS vs. DETROIT PISTONS : With Game on the Line, Kareem Is Ageless

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,

Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now,

Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held.

--From a Shakespearean sonnett With 14 seconds left in Sunday’s ballgame, Lakers down by one point, the player with the tatter’d weed of a livery steps to the free-throw line.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who this year will be besieged by his 41st winter, has the ball and the season in his hands.

Pressure? If Kareem misses these, the Lakers’ footprints in the sands of history get washed out to sea like Pat Boone’s love letters in the sand.

If Kareem misses these, the only commercial endorsements he’ll get this summer will be for Kibbles ‘n Bits.

He has missed 11-of-14 shots in this game. It has not been a great series for the National Basketball Assn.’s grand old man.

He came into this Game 6 averaging 4 rebounds and 1 assist, and was a wimpy 12 for 20 from the free-throw line.

He has made six straight free throws in this game, but if he can’t make one or two right here, the Lakers’ rear ends are held firmly in the jaws of defeat.

Magic Johnson, lining up along the lane, has one thought regarding these two free throws:

“It’s money.”

Kareem has no thoughts. His mind is as clear and clean as his scalp. For you tourists, this is a Southern California thing, where you, like, block out all the outside vibes and focus in on where you’re at.

Kareem centers himself on the free-throw line and looks up at the front rim with a surveyor’s eye. He bounces the ball a couple times and makes sure he has his fingers lined up across the seams, and, his mind a tabula rasa (blank slate), he shoots.

And makes. And makes again.

A lot of other things happened Sunday afternoon in the sixth and opening game of the NBA Finals, after five crummy warmup games.

But these two free throws give the Lakers a 103-102 lead, which turns out to be the final score.

“It was no time to panic,” Kareem said when it was all over. “Sometimes it’s easier, the pressure makes you concentrate. In an emergency situation, you can do extraordinary things. This was an emergency. The lights were on, that’s for sure.”

Kareem was too busy making those free throws to appreciate the irony of himself, the most maligned and discussed player of these Finals, being placed in the position of deciding the game and the course of Laker history.

There has been a mass preoccupation with Kareem’s age in this series. NBA players, like Shakespeare’s girlfriend, aren’t supposed to be in full flower in their fourth decade.

Kareem is a fossil, a sad relic. No, no, he’s a wonder of modern conditioning. He’s over the hill. No, his skills are faded but still impressive. The Lakers can’t win with a 41-year-old center. The Lakers can’t win without him.

At one point in the CBS telecast, announcer Dick Stockton said, “Kareem’s got 12 points, and he’s 41 years old.”

Kareem finished with 14 points, and was still 41 years old.

Abdul-Jabbar should have his birth certificate silk-screened on the front of his jersey. Why ignore it? He is old. When he was 10, the Pistons were still in Fort Wayne and Pat Boone was trying on his first pair of white buck shoes.

“I’m a geriatric marvel,” Kareem said with a combination of sarcasm and honest amazement. “Everyone my age is wondering how I can stay out there. All the players who went to school when I did say, ‘He’s still playing .’

“It’s strange sometimes. It’s like I’m in a time warp. Certain aspects of it shock me. Like when we were in Detroit, I ran into some people I met back there in the mid-’70s, when they were kids. Some Muslim brothers, who were hoop fans.

“I saw them again this time, they’re all in their 30s, they got kids, and I’m still playing.”

At times he’s playing so poorly that Laker fans cringe when Abdul-Jabbar swings up a skyclanker, or gets his head used for leverage by an opposing rebounder.

Yet, at times he’s hitting the big shot, making the defensive play, like the Adrian Dantley layup he blocked Sunday to protect a five-point Laker lead with 5:49 left.

And he’s still playing well enough to get the ball when the game is on the line. On the fateful play that decided the game, immediately after a Laker timeout, Magic Johnson is supposed to work a two-man game with James Worthy, to get a shot or dish to Worthy on a pick-and-roll.

But the defense is stubborn, so Magic swings the ball to Byron Scott for Option No. 2--the lob into Kareem in the low post.

Kareem takes one step out and turns along the right baseline to launch a 15-foot skyhook. Bill Laimbeer, instead of trying to bump Kareem’s lower body--a hard-to-detect foul that has worked well against Kareem this series--goes for the shot, reaches over Kareem’s left shoulder, and fouls.

The shot hits the rim three times and the backboard once before bouncing out. Kareem will shoot two.

“I knew they (the free throws) were good,” said Magic Johnson. “He lives for those moments. He’s the best in the world with the game on the line. The best.”

Was Riley glad to see Abdul-Jabbar at the line? Is Kareem the player Riley most wants shooting free throws in that situation?

“Yes,” Riley said. “There are only two--he and Buck (Magic).”

Kareem seemed to enjoy this game. Afterward he stretched his legs halfway across the Lakers’ locker room and talked about two free throws for a half hour.

He looked fresh, he wore no ice packs. The man doesn’t even tape his ankles. Another irony--at 41, his livery is prouder than the battered, bruised and sprained bodies of his younger teammates.

Even Wilt Chamberlain’s halftime TV comment, that Abdul-Jabbar should have retired five years ago, didn’t much phase Kareem.

“No, I don’t want to join Wilt (in semi-retirement),” Kareem said, lightly. “My mouth isn’t big enough.”

And there are worse places to be at 41, I’d guess, than in the Lakers’ locker room, in the limelight, explaining how you just sent the Detroit Whippersnappers back to reality and gave the Lakers a chance to stomp footprints in the sands of history.