Lakers Keep Rockets on Outside Looking In : Pro basketball: Houston sticks to its jump-shot offense and L.A. wins on the road, 95-89.

There’s a sleeping giant here, but the Lakers tiptoed in, picked up what they came for and tiptoed out again.

The giant snored on. Ignoring their own powerful front line, the Rockets fired away from the perimeter, shot eight free throws and fell Thursday night, 95-89.

The Lakers, as usual, double-teamed their inside game and the Rockets, as usual, took the bait and put it up from outside; 38 of their 87 shots came from beyond 15 feet.

Counting playoffs, the Lakers are 9-3 against the Rockets in the last three seasons, 5-1 here.

“We went to the post every damn time,” Rocket Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “Or ran pick-and-roll. That’s our offense.

“I think you can bump into people running down the floor for 48 minutes and get more than eight free throws.”

In theory, anyway.

For the Lakers, it’s a new star every night, as long as they aren’t getting overturned by some sub-.500 team. Sam Perkins led them Thursday with 21 points, 13 rebounds and five assists, easily his best game of the season.

“I think Texas brings out the best in Sam Perkins,” Coach Randy Pfund said of the former Dallas Maverick. “Sam’s a real stalwart for us, but some nights, we don’t go to Sam as much as we should.

“Just when you start wondering, Sam comes through. When you see him going the way he was tonight, you wonder why we don’t go to him the way some teams do to their premier player, pound it in there.”

Among those who wonder about it is Sam Perkins.

“The way we have it now, he’s playing a lot of people,” Perkins said. “Then sometimes they double-team me. Sometimes you don’t get the feel.”

In Pfund’s “offense of the ‘90s,” someone has to give up shots, and it has been the post-up players, Perkins and James Worthy.

For the Rockets, the game was almost a sideshow. An Arkansas telecaster named Bob Heinreich faxed his employees Thursday that he had arrived at a tentative agreement to buy the Rockets from local car dealer Charlie Thomas. Mini-cam crews roamed the Summit halls, but Thomas, cordoned off by security people, had no comment.

The Rockets, 7-3 after an 0-2 start, put Otis Thorpe back in the starting lineup Thursday, alongside Hakeem Olajuwon and Robert Horry, a good-looking 6-8 rookie. Any thought that they were over the hump faded as soon as the game started and Rocket players contented themselves with a jump-shooting duel.

“And Vernon Maxwell isn’t even playing!” an Eastern Conference scout marveled.

The game see-sawed back and forth into the fourth quarter.

A lob to Olajuwon that went awry led to a Laker break. A.C. Green, double-clutching his way through two defenders, scored on a layup, was fouled and made the free throw to put the Lakers ahead to stay.

With Anthony Peeler running the team, the Lakers went on an 11-4 run, enabling Pfund to rest Sedale Threatt.

After that, it was a matter of holding the Rockets off and making their free throws, which they did (23 of 26 for the game).

Pfund noticed that his victorious Lakers had shot only 43%.

“Hmm,” he said, laughing. “I’d better retool our ‘90s style of offense.”

Laker Notes

Hakeem Olajuwon, on the report that Charlie Thomas, with whom he has feuded, might be close to a sale: “It’s good for me.” . . . The Laker guards had another big night: 20 points, seven assists and six rebounds for Sedale Threatt; 18 points for Tony Smith; 10 points, four rebounds and four assists for Anthony Peeler. . . . James Worthy kept struggling. He went three for 11 and played only 19 minutes. He is five for 25 in his last two games.