Suns Parry the Thrusts of Lakers, Win, 113-104

Beaten by 29 points in their last visit here, which was their first game after Magic Johnson announced his retirement, the Lakers figured to be better when they played the Suns on Monday night, if only by degree.

They still lost, but the Lakers cut 20 points off their margin of defeat, falling 113-104, before a sellout crowd of 14,496 at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“I thought our effort was excellent,” Laker Coach Mike Dunleavy said after watching his team lose its second consecutive game. “We did a pretty good job defensively, but we got in foul trouble and we made some mental mistakes.”

Forward Tim Perry scored a personal-best 27 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked two shots as the Suns won their 18th consecutive home game, one shy of the club record.

Perry, who played in only 46 games last season because of tendinitis in his left knee, has developed into a solid player since he was moved into the starting lineup this season.

“The thing about Perry which is terrific for them is that here they hide a guy on the injured list last year and he comes back to save them,” Dunleavy said. “To his credit, he was working, working and working last year. All that work paid off for him. He’s a great example to other players in the league who aren’t getting playing time.

“He’s developed a jump hook and he’s worked on his ability to be on the outside and drive the ball and score. He’s doing things he couldn’t do when he came in. I think it’s a tremendous achievement by him.”

After concentrating on defense for the first three seasons of his NBA career, Perry, who averaged 4.2 points last season, has increased his average to 14.3.

“Sometimes I don’t work as hard on defense as I used to because when you start scoring you lose that (defensive) concept,” Perry said. “It seems like when you score, you get more respect.

After a halftime score of 56-56, the Suns went on a 10-0 run during a span of 3 minutes 10 seconds. The Lakers missed their first seven shots, one of which appeared to be goaltending.

Sun center Andrew Lang blocked a shot by forward James Worthy that appeared to be on its way down. The Lakers protested that it was goaltending, but it was ruled a clean block.

“I thought it was goaltending,” Dunleavy said. “I thought it was out of his hands a long time. That kind of hurts you. It was two points we counted on and it hurt our momentum big time.”

Not much went right for the Lakers at the start of the second half.

Worthy went to the bench shortly after he drew his fourth foul with 10:04 to play and forward A.C. Green was called for a flagrant foul for elbowing Jeff Hornacek with 8:50 remaining.

“There was a stretch at the beginning of the third quarter where they had a run and it really hurt us,” Dunleavy said. “They got too many easy second shots on us, but most of the time we did a good job defensively.”

The Lakers used a 20-11 run to pull to 77-76 with 3:13 left in the third quarter, but the Suns put together a 22-8 burst spanning the third and fourth quarters to open a 15-point lead.

“They came out in the third quarter and went on that run,” said Laker guard Sedale Threatt, who had a team-high 27 points. “We played well to get out of it, but we made some key mistakes that allowed them to control the game down the stretch.”

Laker Notes

Guard Byron Scott, who had only nine points during Sunday’s 103-97 loss to the Chicago Bulls, was more involved in the offense, scoring 17 points. Scott, who didn’t take a shot until the last minute of the first half of Sunday’s game, made seven of 11 shots against the Suns. . . . After playing 42 minutes against the Bulls, forward A.C. Green had only three points in 31 minutes against the Suns. Forward James Worthy, who played 43 minutes against the Bulls, had 16 points in 34 minutes on Monday. Worthy had only four points during the second half, missing 10 of his final 13 shots. . . . Jerrod Mustaf started in place of Sun forward Tom Chambers, who was sidelined because of a strained hamstring.