COMMENTARY : Anybody Need a 3-Peat Slogan?

You can get a bargain on those “3-Peat” T-shirts all over Los Angeles, from the Valley to the South Bay, from the east side to the west side, from LAX all the way to the airport in Las Vegas.

It was a great slogan, but for it to come true the Los Angeles Lakers had to win four games. And they couldn’t even win one. Looks like another Bad Boys day. Tough break Los Angeles.

For much of the game, especially the first half when the Lakers drew their strength from the singular heroics of James Worthy and bolted to a 16-point lead, it appeared as if the sweep would be denied.

The Pistons were uncharacteristically sloppy with the ball and obviously uninterested in a Lakers lineup so depleted by injuries and fouls that Los Angeles was forced to play David Rivers and Jeff Lamp, who in the Lakers’ first 11 playoff games combined for only 10 minutes.

You looked at the Pistons and wondered how they could appear so uninspired. You also wondered if with Tony Campbell starting instead of Magic Johnson, would Campbell get Magic’s customary pre-game kiss from Isiah Thomas and Mark Aguirre? And speaking of those good buddies, through three quarters they had only nine more points than Magic, who was on the bench in a sweatsuit.

Were they feeling sympathy pains? Aguirre, in particular, was invisible. For the second straight game he had only two points. This guy averaged 25 points a game for seven years. Who’s his role model, Ralph Sampson?

As hot as Worthy was though, with a career high of 40 points, he could not do it alone. In the fourth quarter the Pistons fell back on their old standbys, depth and defense, and clamped down on the Lakers.

Los Angeles got just 19 points, while Detroit’s reserve center James Edwards got 13 by himself. When the Pistons are at their best, they come at you from too many angles to defend. Invariably, they’re at their best in the fourth quarter.

This is only the fifth time in 42 years that a team has been swept in the NBA finals. Curiously, Kareem has been involved in three of them: In 1971, his Milwaukee Bucks swept the Baltimore Bullets. In 1983, his Lakers were swept by Moses Malone, Julius Erving and the rest of the Philadelphia 76ers in the famous “fo, fo, fo” series.

Now, this, Kareem’s farewell. Arrividerci, Sky Hook. Kareem came out forever with 19 seconds left in the game, exhausted by his effort in Game 3, able to manage only seven points and three rebounds in 29 minutes. Ironically, neither of Kareem’s baskets came on the Sky Hook. If you tuned in to see it, you were one game late.

No team wants to suffer the rank embarrassment of being swept, particularly on its home court. But the Lakers can look back on the 1980s confident they were the dominant team, the only one that could fairly be considered a dynasty.

They gained the finals eight times and won five championships. (It could well have been six; the Lakers were an unprecedented 11-0 in these playoffs but lost Byron Scott before Game 1 and Magic Johnson midway through Game 2.)

Paradoxically, although it has been almost impossible to repeat as NBA champions through the 1980s, the finals regularly showcased the same opponents: Los Angeles played Boston three times, Philadelphia three times and Detroit twice.

The two times the Lakers didn’t reach the final, Houston did, and played Boston. Only five teams got there, a lack of parity that actually helped the NBA prosper, because it allowed the continued focus on attractive rivalries and charismatic players like Magic, Larry Bird, Dr. J., Kareem and Moses. Flush, the league plans to ride Michael Jordan into the mid-90s and the new age of perimeter basketball.

This Los Angeles-Detroit series certifies the passing of the sacred assumption that you couldn’t win without a great center, or at least a very good one, like Robert Parish.

There were exceptions -- Rick Barry’s Warriors had non-scoring Clifford Ray in the middle -- but the rule derived from people like Wilt, Bill Russell, Willis Reed, Wes Unseld, Dave Cowens, Bill Walton, Moses and, of course, Kareem.

By the mid-1980s, the game altered course. Instead of routinely pounding the ball into the low post, coaches put the ball in the hands of quick, creative perimeter players like Magic, Bird and Julius.

Here, finally, is confirmation that a championship can be won from the wings. Neither Los Angeles nor Detroit has a dependable scorer at center. Despite his evocative Game 3, Kareem is no longer a sincere offensive threat; the Pistons don’t even pretend to play with a center -- for all intents and purposes, on offense Bill Laimbeer is a shooting guard. Tuesday night he had both the Pistons’ three-pointers.

The vexing thing for the Pistons will be convincing people how good they really are. Yes, it was a sweep, but it will carry an asterisk. People won’t let Detroit forget that Magic and Scott couldn’t play, that 33-year-old Michael Cooper was forced to play 94 minutes in the last two games, that Riley was so thin at guard he had to ask Worthy to go back there, that losing Magic and Scott not only discombobulated the Lakers’ offensive rotation, but incapacitated their defense.

Why do you think the Pistons’ guards had such an elegant path to the basket? They’ll point to the nervous victories in Games 2, 3 and 4, when the Lakers stayed close more on spirit than on talent, and they’ll wonder if the Pistons were a worthy champion.

Such slights would be unfair. The Pistons proved all season long they were the best team in the league. They won in the toughest division in basketball. They were deeper than every other team, and better on defense. They have the whole package. If you could build it on the assembly line, everyone with a pair of sneakers would buy it.