NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : Season Comes Down to Unsavory Finish : Lakers Asking What If After Detour

They came, they saw, and they saw some more, mostly the other team winning. But celebrate the Lakers did not, not for a third consecutive season.

Destiny came calling Tuesday night on the Lakers in resounding fashion, a four-game sweep by the Detroit Pistons in the NBA finals. The response, while not noted in the history books, was, “Yeah, but what if . . . “

What if Byron Scott had not missed the series because of a partially torn left hamstring, suffered in practice the day before Game 1 a week ago Tuesday?

What if Magic Johnson, the league’s regular-season most valuable player and the other Laker starting guard, had not missed practically all of the last two games, playing only 4 minutes 46 seconds Sunday, thanks to a strained left hamstring?

What if the Lakers did not lose Game 2 on the road by three points, 108-105, while giving up five in technical fouls?

“I think if they had won by 15 or 16, we still would have wondered what if,” Scott said after the Pistons’ 105-97 victory at the Forum wrapped up the title.

“We had a car with two wheels off,” Coach Pat Riley said. “But the Pistons took control of that, and that’s why we are where we are.”

Just where that is, beyond a fast arrival into the off-season, has yet to be determined.

“ What could have been is something that will go down in the record books,” Riley said. “There’s no asterisk next to their (the Pistons’) championship; they deserve it. But the historical significance, that will always bother me because we had all those lost opportunities.

“That’s what gnaws at me the most. Not diminishing what the Pistons did, but the hole in my stomach will always be there from not knowing.

“We were primed. We were ready. We blew through the playoffs. Then, at the 11th hour, fate struck, and we never had a chance to gather ourselves.”

Scott said: “It’s an empty feeling because we never got a real chance. It’s an empty feeling. That’s pretty much all you can say.”

Orlando Woolridge: “It’s very frustrating. We went out and played as hard as we could with what we had. But we’re always going to wonder what might have happened. What might have happened with Byron and Magic.”

Scott: “It’s always going to be hard not to think about Earvin and myself not being in there. There’s going to be questions in a lot of people’s minds, and ours.

“It can’t compare to any other (series loss), not participating. It was devastating. I thought possibly it (the injury) was feeling better. I was hoping the series would go a couple more games and I could get back into shape to play. It’s something I will have to live with. There will always be questions, buts and ifs, but they are champions now.”

What remains are memories, some worth saving, but most to be thrown away. As soon as possible.

“I grabbed his (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s) jersey when he left it,” Riley said of his souvenir, part of the last Laker uniform Abdul-Jabbar will ever wear. “It was sweaty, but I grabbed it anyway. . . . It will hang in my closet, with all those Armani threads of mine.”

That was one of the few keepers.