76er Fare No Feast to Lakers

Dining partners Earvin Johnson and Charles Barkley met before embarking for a late dinner, though not to discuss the menu.

Johnson, looking for an encore to his last-second, game-winning three-point shot here in 1987, encountered the 255-pound Barkley, who applied defensive pressure that is legal in the NFL only within the five-yard bump zone. Johnson’s shot fluttered off like a wounded duck and the Lakers fell to the 76ers, 92-90, Monday night.

Hadn’t Barkley feared a foul call?

“That point in the game, the whistle is so far down their throats, they have to burp to make it blow,” Barkley said.

“Maybe in L.A. I fouled him but in Philly, it’s a clean play.”

Thus ended the crunch course of the Laker trip. They won the game they needed Sunday in overtime in Auburn Hills, Mich., while using James Worthy 49 minutes and Johnson 47, running their averages on the trip to 43 and 42, respectively.

If that rendered Monday’s game a bonus, Mike Dunleavy was no less keen to secure it, letting Johnson finish this marathon with a 43-minute, no-relief-in-the-second-half sprint to the wire.

Dunleavy was thus tempted only after he saw his exhausted players come up with a big effort against the rested Sixers, rallying from 81-72 in the fourth quarter to lead four times by one point, the last time 90-89 on Worthy’s 15-footer over Armon Gilliam with 54 seconds to play.

“Coming in, I didn’t know what was going to happen with us,” Johnson said. “We came up with a great effort. We had some plays to win the game, but we just couldn’t do it. But we’ve come a long way playing back-to-back games.”

They may have come miles, but they were an inch short Monday.

The 76ers tied the score, 90-90, with 38 seconds to play when Barkley made one of two free throws. With 24 seconds remaining, Johnson drove but lost the ball. It flew to the 76ers’ Rick Mahorn, who started to fall out of bounds, alertly called a timeout and was granted one a split-second before he toppling over the line.

The Sixers then ran a play for Barkley. Isolated on the right wing, Barkley blew past A.C. Green, screeched to a halt before the oncoming Vlade Divac, slid around him and made a driving layup as Green hacked him from behind.

Barkley missed this free throw, but the 76ers had enough points, it turned out.

Barkley said later that Green might have been a little close to him but that was appropriate since “in that situation, you don’t want to give a guy an open shot.”

Said Green: “He made his move quicker than I anticipated. It was quicker, I think, than any of my teammates anticipated. It just sort of caught us a little bit by surprise.”

When the Lakers rebounded Barkley’s missed free throw, they had 4 seconds left.

They in-bounded the ball, but the 76ers had a foul to give. Barkley bear-hugged Johnson and the clock ticked down to 3.6 seconds.

The Lakers in-bounded the ball again to Johnson, who tried to make a move on Barkley.

“He was going to go left if he went any where,” Barkley said.

“Two things--he wasn’t going to get off any three-pointer and he wasn’t going right. I saw Doc (Julius Erving) make a bad play a few years ago and give him a three and we lost the game.”

Said Johnson: “What do you want me to say? He’s going to be aggressive. Three seconds, you know you aren’t going to get a foul call. That’s out. If I was in his shoes I would have done the same thing.”

Before the media were allowed into either dressing room, before Dunleavy had finished his remarks to his team, Barkley peeked inside the Laker room to arrange that night’s dinner. “I’m buying,” Barkley said. “He took care of me in L.A. Took me to his house, one of the eight wonders of the world.”

But half an hour later, Johnson visited the other room and begged off, pleading exhaustion, neatly encapsulating the state of the Lakers:

Too tired to eat a free meal.

Laker Notes

The teams used similar tactics, the Lakers double-teaming Charles Barkley and the 76ers similarly pressuring Magic Johnson. Johnson took only six shots and the Lakers had trouble finding another shooter. James Worthy was eight for 23, A.C. Green three for 12, Terry Teagle four for 12. Johnson finished with 16 points; Byron Scott led the Lakers and Armon Gilliam topped the 76ers, each with 19 points. . . . Block party: The 76ers’ Manute Bol had six, the Lakers’ Vlade Divac had three. Divac also had 14 points and 16 rebounds.