Lakers Regain Appetite to Win : Pro basketball: Worthy and Scott spark running game in a 123-108 victory over the Hornets.

The sweet potato pie was never so sweet and the ham never so succulent. “A win,” James Worthy said as his Laker teammates wolfed down their postgame meal, “makes it taste a lot better.”

Gladys Worthy provided the home cooking, and her son James provided 24 points and the leadership the Lakers needed to break away from the Hornets in the second half of a 123-108 victory at the Charlotte Coliseum on Friday night.

Worthy, having the worst season of his career, made nine of 17 shots, including two three-pointers early in the second quarter that eroded a nine-point lead. Worthy and Byron Scott, who was 11 for 17 with a game-high 27 points, paced a 54.8% shooting performance that was the Lakers’ best in 11 games and second-most productive of the season.

“I don’t know if this is a turning point for us, but it’s something we can build on,” said Worthy, who had dozens of friends and relatives from his hometown of Gastonia, N.C., in the crowd of 23,698.

“We can play the way we were playing early in the season, and we’ve got to get back to it. Defense gets you going. That’s where we have to start focusing and stop worrying about the offense. . . . It’s only one game, and we’re a team that’s got to do this consistently. Until we do that, we can’t be truly satisfied.”

They might not have been satisfied, but they definitely weren’t hungry.

“We have to look at it as one game, one win. We can’t say we’re out of our slump,” Scott said as he grabbed a fork. “We’ve got to go up to Boston and play this same type of game. Once we win five, six straight, we can be happy.”

The victory that lifted them above .500 (21-20) was only their third in the last 10 games. It was the product of their inconsistent running game.

“I know Laker fans, Laker players, Laker coaches like that to be the way we play basketball. We like this to be the model for what we do,” Coach Randy Pfund said. “The guys showed a resolve to stick with the running game. They made a great effort, and there seemed to be a bit of urgency to the game tonight, which was great.”

The urgency was born of watching tapes of their 127-110 loss Thursday at Indiana and realizing how awful they had been. After making only two of their first 13 shots Friday, they made 10 of their next 13, with Vlade Divac--in early as a substitute for Sam Perkins-- getting two layups and a dunk. Scott missed his first four shots but converted a driving layup with 3:13 to play in the first quarter to cut Charlotte’s lead to 23-19. From there, he was nearly unstoppable, piling up 16 points by halftime as the Lakers took a 55-52 lead--their first halftime lead in eight games.

“We looked at the video and took a good look at ourselves, and I don’t think there were too many guys who liked what they saw,” Scott said. “Personally, I just told myself, ‘Just come ready to play and play hard.’

“It felt good. I can’t compare these games (to the running style of previous Laker teams) because we did it (then) for 48 minutes. Tonight, it was pretty close to that.”

It was close enough to impress Larry Johnson, the NBA’s rookie of the year last season. “They executed real well on offense and got the ball to the people they needed to get the ball to,” said Johnson, whose 21 points was second among the Hornets to rookie Alonzo Mourning’s 23. “We tried to pressure them and they overcame it and hit some key baskets.”

Johnson accepted the loss as a lesson, but he jokingly objected to the Lakers’ bountiful postgame spread. “They come and beat us and get to eat?” he complained to Gladys Worthy. “It was your food. That’s why they won.”