Story Getting Old for Lakers : Game 4: Bulls wear down home team, 97-82, to take a 3-1 lead. Worthy, Scott questionable for Wednesday.

The handwriting is on the wall and it doesn’t say Great Western Forum, either.

Maybe the Lakers are too old. They were young enough to get to the NBA finals, but after that, they seemed to age faster than a U.S. president.

Clearly they are too thin. Sunday, in what was supposed to be the Lakers’ last-ditch stand, the Bulls rolled over them, 97-82, to take a 3-1 lead in the series.

But give the Lakers this: They can still tell the score.

“I’ve been in so many of these,” Magic Johnson said, laughing through the pain. “Sometimes, it goes good. Sometimes it goes bad.”

Sometimes there’s a collapse as in this series. Nor is the cause a mystery.

Slumps and James Worthy’s injury left the Lakers with three whole, producing members--Johnson (22 points), Vlade Divac (27 points) and Sam Perkins (one of 15, three points).

Johnson, under constant pressure from Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, can feel the few, the proud, the Lakers that are still capable of scoring double figures, wearing down . . .

“Fast,” he said, still laughing. “You can’t have a workload against them like this.”

Johnson will get his vacation the hard way--he will earn it--because there may not be many teammates available.

Worthy departed Sunday with 2:49 left in the third quarter and his sprained left ankle aching. He is doubtful or worse for Wednesday’s Game 5, depending on whom you ask.

“James definitely won’t play,” Johnson said.

Byron Scott may not play. He bruised his right shoulder Sunday.

“Well, he hurt his shoulder,” Johnson said. “And you need that shoulder to shoot.”

Sunday’s game demonstrated the Laker predicament all over.

--First, they have no control of the Bulls’ offense.

After getting over their Game 1 jitters, the Bulls have succeeded in pulling the Lakers out of the lane, spreading them out and riddling them from inside and out. Since Game 1, Horace Grant and John Paxson are each shooting 66%.

“‘They have two guys who are extremely hard to guard, Jordan and Pippen,” Laker Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “They’re great one-on-one players and they have a nice complement of other players. When you go to give help, the other guys hurt you.”

Sunday, the Bulls jumped off to a 22-13 lead.

--Second, the Lakers, without Scott, taken away by the Bulls’ defense, without a bench that was missing most of the season, can’t sustain anything.

The Lakers battled back Sunday to grab a 30-29 lead early in the second quarter.

Mike Dunleavy sent Larry Drew in for Johnson.

Johnson was out for 2:46, in which time the Bulls outscored the Lakers, 8-2, taking a lead they would never lose.

When Jordan went up out of the left corner and hit a 20-footer at the halftime horn, the Bulls led, 52-44.

After that, competition waned.

Dunleavy, stressing defense at the break, wasn’t enchanted to see Pippen drive the lane on the first play of the third quarter and throw down a left-handed dunk.

Nor did Grant’s short jump hook look like what the Laker coach wanted.

Dunleavy called the first of two fast timeouts. An NBC reporter monitoring the huddle said Dunleavy told his regulars he would bench them all if the defense didn’t pick up.

It didn’t.

The Bulls ran their lead up to 74-58 by the start of the fourth quarter and that was just about the game, series and season.

“The first half was like a nightmare,” Johnson said.

“The third quarter-- whooo! It got scary, sort of, ‘Man, are we going to hit one shot? Somebody?’

“I can’t feel bad because they just gave us a good butt-kicking. Are they better than Portland? Oh, yeah. They’re more patient than Portland.”

No team has ever rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the finals, providing Johnson a new challenge.

“I could look at it a lot better if I had two more guys,” he said.

“But when you’re playing a team that’s playing well and you’re minus two guys, it’s going to be a tough task. I mean, we can be real about this.

“I anticipated the ultimate series. When you have Michael and I, the Bulls and the Lakers, you just anticipate more than this. . . .

“I’m more than disappointed. I don’t know what I am. I’m just here in a funk, in a daze, in disbelief.”

Aside from that, it was just another loss.

ADDITIONAL COVERAGE: C10-13