NBA PLAYOFFS : All That Worrying for Nothing Once the Real Season Shows Up

Los Angeles, as we all know, is infamous the world over as a city of violent population-wide mood swings. One day the L.A. sun wears a big happy face; the next day our only motivation for getting out of bed is to head out on the freeway, lean out the window and curse the bloodlines of our fellow motorists.

Until now, the blame for this malaise was generally placed on smog-borne, fluctuating hormones, but science has finally isolated the real cause.

The Lakers.

That’s right, everyone is so worried about this team that our collective moods reflect the peaks and valleys of performance by the Laker lads. Now the worry is: Can they re-repeat?

Civic concern hit an all-time high during the regular season when the back-to-back National Basketball Assn. champions slumped drastically. I don’t have all the statistics, but they lost what? About 20, 30 games in a row at one point? Either that or they lost to the Clippers, I forget which.

Whatever it was, things got so bad that citizens’ groups were formed, committees appointed and our town went into a major funk-slump that was the talk of the Pacific Rim. The Lakers, sensing our need, regrouped and clawed home with the second-best record in the league, and the usual Pacific Division crown. It wasn’t enough. The city groused and worried about its over-the-hill Lakers.

Now, two games into the real season, the picture has changed drastically. The team about which we’ve all been worried sick has crushed the Portland Trail Blazers twice in the opening-round, best-of-five series, and looked so good doing it that the worry now is that complacency will set in, or that they’ve peaked too soon.

Never mind that before they collect their next set of rings, the Lakers will have to put away Portland, then get past two other Western Division clubs, then probably play the back-alley Detroit Pistons in an NBA finals grudge match.

Details.

When the Lakers play like they played Sunday, those seem like minor concerns.

Magic Johnson, asked how he reacts to change in the public outlook, from a mutinous grumbling to a sudden swelling of pride and optimism, shrugged.

“This team never worries about what people say,” Johnson said. “It’s time to take care of business, not to worry about what the perception of our team is.”

The perception now is that the Lakers are finals-bound. It’s important, however, to consider the level of the current opposition. To take nothing away from the Trail Blazers, they’re not that good. The Lakers are supposed to sweep them.

For the Lakers, the first round of the playoffs always is like the compulsories in figure skating. Fortunately for the fans who pay to watch this tuneup series, the Lakers and Magic Johnson don’t skate figure-eights, they skate their Social Security numbers.

Johnson scored 35 points and had 12 assists, eight rebounds and five steals Sunday.

You get the impression watching Magic that at age 29, he finally is grasping the game’s nuances. Twice Sunday, Magic Hands Johnson stripped a Portland player of the ball in midshot, leaving Jerome Kersey and then Steve Johnson to shoot pretend jump shots while Magic raced the other way with the ball, all the way for layups.

On the second theft-and-go, he was fouled and made the free throw, so those two plays accounted for a nine-point swing--four the Trail Blazers didn’t get and five the Lakers did get. The Lakers won the game by eight points, incidentally.

Johnson also knocked in four of eight three-point bombs Sunday, a box-score item that will be noted around the league. A couple years ago, Magic mastered the skyhook. This year he nailed down the league free-throw percentage title, and added a confident three-point tippy-toe jump shot.

Until now, Magic had never shot more than 56 bombs in an entire season, and never hit better than 23% of his long attempts. One season, 1982-83, he was 0 for 21. This season he shot 188 bombs and hit a satisfactory 31 percent. This, combined with Magic’s running game and post-up game and passing game, makes him a difficult man to guard.

It should be noted that much of the credit for Magic’s emergence as a three-point artist goes to Michael Cooper. As Cooper pointed out Sunday, “Nobody was shooting threes until I started. Now balls are flyin’ all over the place.”

True enough. Also, Cooper and Scott were even more effective bombers than Magic this season, Byron hitting 40% and Cooper 38%. Also, Cooper and Scott get credit for Magic’s development as a three-point shooter. For years, Cooper and Scott consistently went into Magic’s pocket in daily games of H-O-R-S-E by taking Magic out beyond the three-point line. Out of economic necessity, Magic became a better long-ball shooter.

“In other years, I only shot ‘em (the bombs) if the shot clock was running out,” Magic said. “Now I’m looking for ‘em.”

Why the sudden change to an emphasis on the three?

“We need a change,” Johnson said. “Every team shoots ‘em. It gives us a new dimension, that’s all.”

That sounds really encouraging. . . . Until you stop to consider that the Pistons, if you try shooting three-pointers against them, they break your kneecaps. Hold that depressing thought and run, don’t walk, to your nearest psychiatrist.