Lakers Find Out Price of Taking Foe Too Lightly : Pro basketball: Johnson scolds team for disrespecting Timberwolves. Looking tired, L.A. loses, 94-85.

Where was it Mychal Thompson said the Lakers would be at the end of this week, first place or third?

For anyone who thought Sunday’s loss to the Rockets in the Forum was an aberration, the Lakers came back Tuesday night and played worse, not to mention more lethargically, and managed to lose for the first time ever to the Timberwolves, 94-85.

The team that had expected to tie Portland Tuesday fell three games behind, instead. The Trail Blazers, with the week off, have their feet up in a retreat on the slopes of Mt. Hood.

The Lakers have four games left on this trip and one teed-off captain, besides.

That was Magic Johnson, the lone respectable Laker with 32 points of their 85, last seenwith smoke curling out of his ears.

“You’re going to lose games and you know that,” Johnson said grimly, “but we’re not supposed to lose like that, being outworked, outplayed, outhustled.

“I’m mad. I’m disappointed. We did not come ready to play. We didn’t play. We did notplay.

“We have no excuses. No excuses for lack of hustle and effort. We disrespected them and we got just what you get when you disrespect a team.”

What is going on is no mystery. The Lakers certainly might have taken the Timberwolves too lightly, but they don’t generally let themselves get outrebounded badly twice in a row, and they’re not above picking up an occasional loose ball.

They’re tired, though most wouldn’t admit it.

Byron Scott did, but the rest stuck to the code of the NBA. Why say anything about fatigue? They won’t give you a week off to rest if you complain.

“Well, you know,” Johnson said. “Everybody else is tired, too. You just gotta go out and do your job.”

This wasn’t the way they thought it would be. After cutting Portland’s lead to 2 1/2 games last Thursday, Thompson announced, “We’ll be in first place by the end of next week.”

They were within 1 1/2 Sunday morning when the Blazers fell 11 points behind Boston . . . andrallied to win, whereupon the Lakers fell down before the Rockets.

Rocked, 2 1/2 back again, the Lakers went back on the road. At least the opposition wouldn’t be overpowering, including three expansion teams and the struggling Bullets. The Lakers had a 25-1 record against the current expansion crop.

“We would have to play a great game, and they would have to play a bad one for us to win,” a Minnesota official said before the game.

Someone suggested in light of the last Laker outing, that might not be impossible.

“Then this would be the greatest win in the history of our franchise,” the officialsaid.

Voila!

The Lakers never led. They were outshot (49% to 41%), outrebounded (42-35), outassisted (24-19) and whipped every other way you could think of.

Mike Dunleavy, protective except in the most extreme situations, called it an “ugly game for us” and criticized everyone but Johnson, including graciously second-guessing himself for trying to cut the Timberwolves’ lead with a big lineup, instead of the small pressing unit that made some headway later.

If Dunleavy messed up, he had company.

James Worthy missed nine of his first 12 shots.

Normally the most consistent of workers, Worthy was so far out of it, he stopped watching the play while acting as a decoy in the third period and did a huge double-take when Johnson threw him the ball.

Byron Scott went 44:50 before making a shot longer than a dunk.

Scott, whose outside shooting keeps opponents from double-teaming Johnson, went four for 12. In the last two games, he is eight for 25.

Reserve guards Terry Teagle and Tony Smith combined to miss all six of their shots.

Vlade Divac had four points and six rebounds.

Sam Perkins, out of shape after his layoff, stumbled through 39 minutes, shot four for 11 and took five rebounds.

Put it all together and it spells l-o-s-s. Or s-e-c-o-n-d p-l-a-c-e.

The Lakers were so bad that early in the third quarter, Minnesota Coach Bill Musselman told referee David Jones: “They’re playing like an expansion team, not us. That’s the worst they’ve played all year.”

Asked about it later, Musselman, obviously fearing Laker retribution, said he was kidding.

“That was a psych job,” he said. “I didn’t think they were playing that bad.”

He had it right the first time.

Laker Notes

Former Laker Tony Campbell scored 25 points to lead the Timberwolves and broke a silence, saying he loves Los Angeles, has nothing against the Lakers and that the victory had no special meaning. Campbell, who has ripped Bill Musselman several times, is angry at the local reporters for suggesting he’s unhappy. . . . The Lakers’ next game is at Milwaukee Thursdaynight.