48 MINUTES: Lakers and Pistons Seek Their Place in Time

To win is human; to repeat, divine.

Hard as it is to believe, that notion didn’t originate with Pat (I’ll Guarantee It) Riley. But tonight, on the same Forum floor that the Boston Celtics became the last NBA champion to win back-to-back titles 19 years ago, the Lakers have the chance to click their high-topped heels together and make Riley’s fondest wish come true.

Champions in six games over the Celtics in 1987, the Lakers can make it two straight National Basketball Assn. titles and take their fifth this decade with a Game 7 victory tonight over the Detroit Pistons, who came within a point of winning their first championship Sunday afternoon but tonight may be without point guard Isiah Thomas.

Thomas was still on crutches Monday with a severely sprained right ankle he suffered when he stepped on Laker guard Michael Cooper during the Pistons’ 103-102 defeat in Game 6 Sunday.

“At this point in time, I doubt it,” said Thomas, when asked whether he thought he would play. “Right now the decision has just about been made. Most of the people who looked at (the ankle) seem to think there will not be a chance I can play.”

If he can walk, Thomas added, he’ll play, but in a crippled state it’s almost inconceivable that Thomas can duplicate his wondrous performance in Game 6, when he scored 43 points, including a record-setting 25 in the third quarter. Without Thomas, the Pistons will have to plug in the Microwave, Vinnie Johnson, and hope he can shake and bake for an entire game.

“Could I see us winning it without Isiah?” Detroit Coach Chuck Daly said, repeating a question. “I could see it being a very difficult problem for us, just staying in the game.”

Though the California champagne (Cook’s, from the Guild Wineries in Lodi) is on ice, and plans have been made for a parade and rally at City Hall on Wednesday, the Lakers aren’t popping any corks just because Thomas may be out.

First, they believe to a man that Thomas will play, even if trainer Mike Abdenour said Thomas’ ankle had swollen to the size of a grapefruit.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt Isiah will be there, in a cast or without one,” Riley said.

Second, they have Jerry West to remind them of how the Celtics burst Jack Kent Cooke’s balloons on the Forum ceiling in 1969, the last time the Lakers played a title Game 7 at home.

And finally, they can rewind Chick Hearn’s play-by-play of the 1970 finals, when Willis Reed of the New York Knicks wasn’t supposed to play Game 7 because of a bad knee, but hobbled out to a standing ovation and made his first two shots, which was all it took to blow Laker minds.

“I hope he plays,” Magic Johnson said of Thomas, even though his closest friend could seal the Lakers’ fate with a kiss. “Sometimes it’s more of a letdown for us than for them if he doesn’t play.”

Riley feared a letdown of another sort--a wave of relief washing in after Sunday’s narrow escape over the Pistons, who had led by three with a minute left.

“I went home and I felt relieved, but I started to catch myself,” Riley said. “I didn’t want that to set in, so I dived right into the (video) tape.

“As soon as you start contemplating how you won it, why you won it, who’s great, you soften up. So it was work as usual.”

The Pistons, however, couldn’t help thinking about how they had lost it.

“I saw the whole game last night,” Piston forward John Salley said. “I think if we could have gone up by 5 with a minute to go, we would have won. And I don’t think Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) got fouled (with 14 seconds left).

“Of course, you always say that when you’re the team that got the bad end of the deal.”

It’s obviously no bargain to go into tonight’s game without Thomas, either. The Pistons have a way of losing key players at the most inopportune times: Last season, it was Adrian Dantley knocking heads with Vinnie Johnson in a Game 7 loss against the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals.

How can they win without Thomas?

“I don’t know,” said Dantley, who has been the Pistons’ leading scorer in the series. “We need Isiah. We need him on the court. Sometimes just his presence has got to be considered. We’ll have to see how he feels, how it happens. But I don’t know.”

Thomas spent Monday afternoon undergoing therapy at the Raiders’ training facility at El Segundo, a courtesy extended by Raider owner Al Davis through team official Mike Ornstein. If the Raiders were willing to offer any further help, Detroit center Bill Laimbeer was more than willing to accept it.

“We’ll take Bo Jackson,” Laimbeer said. “We could use the beef.”

For Riley, tonight represents the end of a two-year run, one to which he even dedicated last summer. These playoffs, for him, have been one long series of squeeze games, hope games, turn games and ultimate games. This, of course, is the End Game.

On one hand, history would seem to favor the Lakers. In the 13 times the finals have ended with a Game 7, the home team has won 10 times.

On the other hand, the Lakers have lost all five times they’ve played a championship Game 7 since moving to Los Angeles.

Someone asked Riley if perhaps there wasn’t a touch of arrogance to his guarantee that the Lakers would repeat. Not a chance, he said.

“I did it for my guys and no one else,” Riley said. “I had to get my team’s attention.”

Maybe that’s what did it, maybe not. But for Magic Johnson, at least, tonight’s game is much more academic than any footprints in the sands of time.

“History doesn’t play a part of my game--ever,” he said. “Unless it’s history involving me.”

The chroniclers of the life and times of Earvin Johnson can attest that their man is at his best when a championship is at stake: Michigan state title in high school, NCAA title at Michigan State, a championship season as a Laker rookie, and three more NBA rings.

No quest, however, has taken as long as this.

“When you go this late in June,” he said, “you lose track of what day it is, the date.”

But not the task at hand. His routine today, he said, will be stripped to the essentials.

“No distractions, no nonsense, no nothing,” he said.

His teammates have always said that in times such as these, Johnson gets a certain look in his eye. It was there against Utah in Game 7 of the Western semifinals. It was there against Dallas in Game 7 of the Western finals. And presumably, it will be there tonight, when the Lakers bid to become the first team ever to play three seventh games en route to a title.

Has Johnson ever noticed that look himself?

“No,” he said, “because usually I don’t look at myself except when I’m brushing my teeth and washing my face. You know you. You don’t have to see if you got the look because you know in your mind. You don’t know how you look--you just know .”

And if the Lakers should win tonight, will they place a gag order on their coach?

Johnson laughed.

“Nobody can put a gag order on him,” Magic said. “He’s going to do whatever he’s going to do or say.

“I just hope he doesn’t talk about next year as soon as this is over.”

HOME, SWEET HOME

The home team has won 10 of the 13 NBA Championship Series that have gone to a seventh game. Home team is in black type (*):

Year Game 7 score 1951 Rochester 79*, New York 55 1952 Minneapolis 82*, New York 65 1954 Minneapolis 87*, Syracuse 80 1955 Syracuse 92*, Fort Wayne 91 1957 Boston 125*, St. Louis 123 (2 OT) 1960 Boston 122*, St. Louis 103 1962 Boston 110*, Lakers 107 (OT) 1966 Boston 95*, Lakers 93 1969 Boston 108, Lakers 106* 1970 New York 113*, Lakers 99 1974 Boston 102, Milwaukee 87* 1978 Washington 105, Seattle 99* 1984 Boston 111*, Lakers 102