NBA FINALS : CHICAGO BULLS 104, LAKERS 96 (OVERTIME) : It’s an Adventure : With Vlade Divac, the Lakers--and Bulls--Can Always Expect the Unexpected

The Chicago Bulls say they never know what Vlade Divac is going to do next. They shouldn’t look to the Lakers for an answer. Neither do they.

Is he going to be timid?

Is he going to be aggressive?

Is he going to be out of sight?

Or is he going to be outasight ?

In the Lakers’ 104-96 overtime loss to the Bulls Friday night at the Forum in Game 3 of the NBA championship series, he was all of the above.

Divac even earned a hug from his stern taskmaster, Magic Johnson, when the Laker center made a basket with 10.9 seconds remaining in regulation to give the Lakers a 91-90 lead.

The play went just the way Johnson diagrammed it. Sure.

When Johnson was double-teamed at the top of the circle, he passed the ball to the free-throw line, where Divac clutched it, turned and stumbled into Bull forward Horace Grant. Divac managed to gain control of the ball and dribble a step forward before Michael Jordan slapped it away. Again, Divac found the handle, charged down the lane and scooped the ball into the basket for two points and the foul that sent Chicago forward Scottie Pippen to the bench.

Then, after the brief celebration with Johnson, Divac made the free throw to give the Lakers a 92-90 lead. Those were his 22nd, 23rd and 24th points of the game on 11-for-15 shooting. And while his seven rebounds were nothing to write to Belgrade about, only one other Laker--Sam Perkins--had more.

So NBC named him the Player of the Game.

Indeed, that moment meant as much to the Lakers as Perkins’ three-point shot that won Game 1 in Chicago.

Jordan’s jump shot with 3.4 seconds remaining sent the game into overtime.

“First game, he miss,” Divac said. “This game, he make. That’s the playoffs.”

His analysis of the overtime, however, was somewhat abbreviated. So was his time in it. He played for only two minutes before drawing his sixth foul.

That wiped the smile off Johnson’s face.

“Vlade did a wonderful job, like I told him,” Johnson said.

“I was proud of him. But I was also upset at him. Reaching, reaching, getting three fouls just by reaching. We can’t have him on the bench. We’ve got to have him on the floor.”

On the other side of the dressing room, Divac described his rather creative three-point play over and over again for the waves of reporters.

“It’s react,” he said.

“I just control the ball. I had open space in paint. I knew what I had to do. I go to the basket. I think Pippen make foul. I’m really happy because I made that one.”

But now, sitting in front of his locker, he was not happy.

He kept pointing to the box score, to the Bulls’ 46-29 rebounding dominance as the difference in either leading or trailing the series, 2-1.

“I said before the start of this series that rebound is the important part of this series,” he said.

“They kill us, they win this game. We don’t make good job on rebounds.”

Despite the Lakers’ problems on the boards, Divac said he thought the Lakers were in control when they went on an 18-2 run in the third quarter for a 13-point lead. Of those 18 points, Divac scored 10.

“I don’t stay in one spot and wait for the ball,” he said. “I had moves.”

But so, it turned out, did the Bulls.

“Basketball is a really crazy game,” he said.

“You can lead by 30 points and lose game. You have to make good concentration.

“But everyone can win anywhere. We beat them over there. They beat us first game here. We have to play much better defense to make good rebounds for us. I think it will be fine.”