Lakers Dig Deeper and Beat Jazz : Pro basketball: After Chucky Brown is hurt in warm-ups, Teagle heats up in a 103-92 victory.

Pausing just long enough to lose yet another player--Chucky Brown, who aggravated his sprained ankle in warm-ups--the Lakers counted up, found they still had enough for a game and proceeded to rock the Utah Jazz’s new world.

In the Delta Center, where the Jazz was 31-3, this Laker team posted yet another improbable upset, beating the home team, 103-92, Friday night, as Terry Teagle scored another 23 points.

The Lakers have won three in a row and have a one-game lead over the Houston Rockets for the last playoff spot in the West.

Because the previous victories had been over the Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks, and because this game lay ahead, not many people gave it a lot of thought.

“I know a lot of people probably looked at the schedule, everyone, the Clippers and every other team in the race from No. 6 to No. 8 and said, ‘Oh, that’s a loss for them over there,’ ” Byron Scott said.

“I don’t think this team has anything left to lose the rest of the season. I don’t think anybody expects us to make the playoffs, with Sam (Perkins) and James (Worthy) out and the things that have happened to us.

“We’re just basically going out, playing hard and hopefully having some fun doing it.”

With their inside game home in Los Angeles, Coach Mike Dunleavy went to Plan B--anybody who was warm.

That was Teagle, who was molten.

A renowned streak shooter, at his best when he gets a lot of time in a wide-open game, Teagle had posted back-to-back season highs for 26 and 28 points in the last two games and came out blazing Friday.

The first time he touched the ball, he made an eight-foot running hook shot crossing the lane.

Teagle doesn’t shoot a lot of hooks. Next game he might try bouncing one in off his head.

“I don’t have a certain way to score,” he said. “I’m a scorer, and I just got to put the ball in the basket any way I can.”

Said Scott: “You just get him the ball and get out of the way. You don’t have to run plays for him. Just get him the ball.”

The Lakers had lost seven of their last eight on the Jazz’s home court. They played Thursday night while Utah rested, just one more reason to believe this wasn’t their night.

Even they were dubious.

“I was looking at our guys in the layup line,” Scott said, “and they didn’t really look like they were ready to play.

“But we came out and played hard. We just wanted to stick with them the first three quarters, stay close.”

And they did.

The teams were within eight points of each other until the fourth quarter. With the score 77-77, Teagle drove to his left into the lane, hit a floating eight-footer, was fouled and made the free throw.

A moment later, he made a running 10-footer, and the Lakers were ahead to stay.

The Jazz went to a half-court zone trap, but Sedale Threatt made three consecutive outside shots.

The harder the Jazz tried to rally, the further it fell behind, its futility climaxed in one furious fast break on which John Stockton missed a layup, Karl Malone missed the rebound and Stockton missed the rebound of that miss.

So the Lakers showed what a team can do with a missing star.

Of course, they have had more practice than most.

“We started with Earvin (Johnson),” Dunleavy said. “We lost James. We lost Sam. If we lose any more games, we’ll get rid of somebody else.”

Laker Notes

Byron Scott suffered a slightly pulled right hamstring in the second quarter. He returned in the second half. . . . Terry Teagle has made 32 of 48 shots in his last three games. Sedale Threatt is 18 for 27 in the last two. . . . Referee Jake O’Donnell asked the public address announcer if a Laker foul was their second in the last two minutes of the first half, was told--incorrectly--that it was and let Karl Malone shoot two free throws. Malone made one. O’Donnell later checked, discovered the error and subtracted the point from the Utah total. . . . Mike Dunleavy: “The key to our wins lately, we’re making shots. Defensively we’re pretty good. We know how to play people. When we put the ball in the basket, we usually win games.”