NBA Notes : For Once, Lakers Have Fight on Their Hands in Division

Let’s get one thing straight right away. The Forum in Los Angeles is Wayne Gretzky’s new home, but he’s still renting the joint -- the Lakers own it.

They need it, too. Desperately. Not since 1981, when they last failed to win the Pacific Division, have the Lakers had to play so deep into the regular season to keep their home-court advantage at least through the NBA playoff semifinals.

“We can’t catch Detroit, we know that,” Lakers Coach Pat Riley said last week. “But we really want to have the best record in the Western Conference.”

With four days left in the regular season, the Lakers have come eyeball-to-eyeball with three realities: 1. Phoenix is capable of reaching the finals; 2. Utah hasn’t gotten any weaker since taking the Lakers to seven games last spring; 3. Everybody grows old, and consecutive championships seem to make an 82-game season last about five years.

The Lakers are on the cusp of passing from now into then, but they still are capable of mounting one more run. Their chances of success, however, would be vastly diminished if they had to play two series without the home court.

Last spring the Lakers won three seven-game series: against Utah, Dallas and Detroit. In each case, the deciding game was played at the Forum. The Lakers were 3-7 on the road in the playoffs. They are 33-6 at home this season. They beat Phoenix three times in Los Angeles, but lost three in Phoenix.

But that’s just arithmetic. Teams around the NBA understand the Lakers possess something more, and that something is multiplied at home.

“Their credibility is unbelievable,” said Jazz President Frank Layden, who was the Jazz’s coach last spring. “A lot of teams in the league hold the Lakers in awe. And when you go into the Forum, that goes along with referees, too. You’re always playing them (at the Forum) with the idea that if you’re 10 points ahead, they’re going to come up with a 10-point play.”

That mystique becomes more valuable when the Lakers have been playing poorly. You can draw any conclusion from their 142-118 blowout of the Nuggets Tuesday night at the Forum, a performance that prompted Magic Johnson to do a Pat Riley: predict a title. “This team is going to come through,” he said. Denver, however, is fading fast -- it has five straight losses -- and that game is not a fair barometer.

The Lakers chugged into April, winning just 6 of 11 games before beating up on the Nuggets. They lost to the Clippers and Warriors on the road, and to the Jazz at home in a 99-97 bare-knuckle fight.

“From watching us play, it looks like we’ve been struggling and that’s hard to understand,” Lakers General Manager Jerry West said. “Last year at this time we were getting better, and right now we’re standing still. That’s hard to understand.”

The Suns’ win over Miami Wednesday night moved them within half a game of the Lakers, but because tie-breakers favor the Lakers, the Suns must win their last two games and the Lakers must lose two of their last three (Thursday at home against Sacramento, Friday night in Portland, Sunday at home against Seattle) for Phoenix to win the division.

The Lakers would become the last team to clinch, when they customarily are the first. It is a tribute to the Suns, who have been better than anyone imagined. “We’ve never figured we were in the race,” Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons said.

“What matters,” Suns General Manager Jerry Colangelo said, “is that we’re hot going into the playoffs.”

The hit of the Orlando Classic, that annual meat market for college seniors and draft-eligibles, was Randy White, a 6-8, 240-pound power forward from Louisiana Tech. “He’s pushing the first five picks right now,” Colangelo said.

Stu Inman, player personnel director for the Heat, said, “Absolutely will go in the first 10 picks.”

Others who improved their standing were point guard Pooh Richardson of UCLA, guard Tim Hardaway of UTEP and center Gary Leonard of Missouri. All likely will be first-round picks. Leonard, a 7-foot center, might go as high as the first eight picks. Two who slipped: Dyron Nix of Tennessee and Todd Lichti of Stanford.

Most of the elite players skip postseason tournaments; one who took a gamble on upping his value was Stacey King of Oklahoma, and it may have cost him.

“He was horrendous for two days,” said one NBA team official. In the last game, however, King scored 40 points and had 13 rebounds, a performance that might preserve his spot in the top five of the draft. Nobody displaced the likely top two: Duke’s Danny Ferry and Arizona’s Sean Elliott.

Nothing to do Friday night? Try going to Charlotte for the Hornets’ last regular-season home game. In celebration of winning the NBA attendance title -- a first by an expansion team -- the Hornets will have a massive tailgate party, give T-shirts and gym shorts to all fans and players’ game jerseys to 12 fans. One fan will win a car, and there will be a post-game concert. “We might try to fit in a game somewhere, if we have time,” General Manager Carl Scheer said.

More practically, Scheer marveled at the accomplishment in a region many thought too saturated with college basketball to support an NBA team. “I’d like to say I knew it was going to happen,” Scheer said. “But it surprised even me.”

Furthermore:

--After shooting 3 for 19 on three-pointers against the Bulls Monday night, the Knicks are 14 for 55 in their last four games and 45 for 150 in their last 10; they’re shooting 34.7 for the season.

--Robert Reid of Charlotte scored his 10,000th career point Tuesday night.

--Magic Johnson’s triple-double against Denver (32 points, 17 rebounds, 17 assists) was his 17th of the season, a league high.

--Milwaukee’s Jack Sikma had played 283 consecutive games before sitting out with an ankle injury Tuesday night against Philadelphia.

--Hot teams going into the playoffs: Phoenix (nine consecutive wins) and Atlanta (eight straight). Cold teams: Denver (five consecutive losses), Milwaukee (5-9 in its last 14 games) and Golden State (four consecutive losses).

--Reggie Williams, the former Georgetown star who was drafted in the first round in 1987, was suspended by the Clippers for the rest of the season for refusing to go into Monday night’s game against Utah. “They just won’t let me play my game,” Williams said. “They haven’t since they drafted me.”

Expect to see him playing it somewhere else next season.

--Seattle, which needs one win to finish fourth in the Western Conference, has won 6 of 7 since Xavier McDaniel became a starter; X-man is averaging 29.3 points a game.

--Golden State’s Mitch Richmond has cooled off along with his teammates, making only eight of his last 34 shots.

--Seattle’s Dale Ellis has made 17 of his last 28 three-point attempts. ... Cleveland is 15-12 since the end of February.

--Phoenix led Sacramento by 60 in the fourth quarter Monday night before winning by 55.

Exclamation point: Charles Barkley, who scored 34 points in 33 minutes against Milwaukee Tuesday night after it was suggested that the Bucks’ Larry Krystkowiak could stop him: “That’s very humorous. I don’t think anybody on this planet can stop me.”