NBA FINALS : LAKERS vs. CHICAGO BULLS : More Bad News: Magic Is Talking About Retiring : Lakers: Johnson says he will evaluate himself after the season, and if he is tired, he will leave.

Aside from injuries to James Worthy and Byron Scott, Magic Johnson resting the last two days and Coach Mike Dunleavy practicing so they could have 10 men, the Lakers look marvelous.

Also, Johnson mentioned Tuesday that he could retire this summer.

“If he retires,” said Dunleavy, who thought he already had problems, “I’m going with him.”

Such is the careworn state of the Lakers, down 3-1 to Chicago in the NBA finals, playing for their basketball lives tonight in Game 5.

Johnson has been smiling through his tears since Sunday’s one-sided victory by the Bulls.

Perhaps tipping off his pain and the toll exacted by 79 regular-season games, 18 playoff games in which he has averaged 43 minutes and a week of being dogged by the Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen greyhound team, Johnson began talking retirement Tuesday.

“I’m not going to play but one or two more years, depending on how I feel,” he said.

“I’ll evaluate myself after this season and every season from here on out. And if I want to leave in a year, then I’ll leave in a year. And if I want to leave the year after that, then I’ll leave then. If I’m tired this summer, then I’ll leave this summer.”

That gagging sound in Bel-Air was emanating from Jerry Buss.

This summer?

“It’s definitely a possibility,” Johnson said. “I’m taking three weeks and deciding what I want to do. If I feel like I don’t want to return, I’ll leave.”

Any hunches?

“Well, we’ll get into that later,” he said, laughing.

What would make him go?

“Just the feeling that it’s time to go. That it’s time to be doing something else. I’ve always wanted to be a businessman. I’ve set myself up. I don’t have to work a day in my life. I own a business in D.C. (a soft-drink distributorship in Washington) that will last forever. My son will have it and his son and on through.”

Could he be in a late-season funk?

“There’s definitely a depression, frustration, everything. . . . What you do now is be depressed and upset and that whole thing. But you say, ‘Well, do I want to come back again?’ More than the game, itself, it’s just you, yourself.”

Within minutes, however, Johnson was saying he didn’t feel that this was his last finals.

“We’ve got some good people,” Johnson said. “Really good people. I feel we’ll be back, and Jerry West is great at making the additions we need. There’s always unrestricted free agents. There’s always pieces that you can add. Sam (Perkins) has proven himself. Vlade (Divac) has come of age.

“I’m not giving up that easy.”

In other words, ask him again in July.

There remains only the question of how long this season lasts.

Dunleavy says he is planning on being without Worthy, whose sprained left ankle has deteriorated, and Scott, who bruised his right shoulder Sunday.

He will start A. C. Green and Terry Teagle, his top reserves, who have iced over in the finals.

That bumps rookies Elden Campbell and Tony Smith up to the role of top reserves.

Green, a complementary offensive player, is faced with stepping in for Worthy and his 21-point series average. Green, a star against the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference finals, has rebounded well in this series--21 in 70 minutes--but has missed 16 of 20 shots.

Teagle has three baskets in the series and four in the past five games. Since Game 3 of the Trail Blazer series, he is seven for 35. He says he is not getting shots but seems to be running away from his opportunities.

Dunleavy has another problem--whom to assign against Jordan.

Scott was playing him.

The only other good prospect Dunleavy had was Worthy.

Teagle, who is not a good defender, will probably draw the assignment by default.

The only Laker hope is an incredible team effort that raises them beyond the sum of their remaining individual parts.

“First of all, our defense has to be a whole lot better,” Dunleavy said.

“We have uncharacteristically come out and played some of these games very soft. We have given up position under the basket, and the points they have gotten early in the game have gotten their people off.”

What could account for this lapse?

Try a little more age and a lot more fatigue.

The Bulls were already younger and more athletic.

They had the added advantage of a 12-game postseason stroll through the East.

The Lakers got out of the West in a surprising 14 games, but the last six against the Trail Blazers left their mark.

“We spent a lot of energy beating Portland, there’s no question about it,” Dunleavy said. “It came down to pretty much the same thing as this series--having to play our guys huge minutes.

“Basically, (the Trail Blazers) went to seven men, also. They had this deep bench that everybody’s talking about all year long, and yet they wound up playing six or seven men against us.

“It makes it difficult for us to play the minutes we’re playing now. Jordan plays 52 minutes also.”

Thus, the Lakers aren’t expected to suffer from overconfidence tonight.

That’s one blessing, anyway.

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* TIME: 6 p.m.