Lakers Have No Fight Against Suns at Forum

The Phoenix Suns needed no “win one for the Gipper” speeches after losing point guard Kevin Johnson to a two-game suspension Wednesday.

Distracted by the furor over their brawl against New York on Tuesday, physically and emotionally drained--and playing a road game the next night--the Suns still pulled themselves together enough to defeat the Lakers, 120-105, before a sellout crowd of 17,505 at the Forum.

“Until we decide to show the toughness to really compete against teams out here, we’re going to really, really struggle,” Laker Coach Randy Pfund said after his team’s franchise-record fifth consecutive home loss. “I don’t fault our effort. We ran up and down the floor. But we aren’t tough at all. If a fight broke out when we’re on the floor, I wonder if anybody would stay. We show no toughness at all. We let them, time after time, come in and ring up points.

“I’d like to see somebody get into a fight for a board. And we were weak taking the ball to the basket. We don’t drive. We must have been stripped 15 times. All we got out of it is fans booing and me and one of the players yelling at the refs.”

The defeat left the Lakers one game ahead of the Clippers for seventh place in Western Conference playoff seedings.

“Until we develop a toughness, we’re not going to beat anybody,” Pfund said.

The Suns (50-15) had every reason to fall apart against the Lakers, who had two days off since their last game and were playing at home for the fourth time in a six-game home stand. Instead, the Suns humbled them for the fourth time this season.

Although Coach Paul Westphal feared the Suns’ ability to penetrate would suffer without Johnson, they barely seemed to miss him. Phoenix is 23-4 in games he has missed this season.

“We didn’t exactly get together and dedicate the game to him,” Westphal said, “but we feel he’s an unjustly persecuted brother and we miss him.”

The Suns were also enraged by Knick Coach Pat Riley’s claim they were excessively physical Tuesday because they had been criticized by the media for not being tough. “It was almost as though they had to prove their manhood and they decided it was going to be against us,” Riley said.

Said Danny Ainge, who scored 27 points Wednesday: “You would have a fight every single game if players felt, if they got fouled hard, they had a right to go and fight someone. How they can say KJ started it is beyond me . . . Who’s trying to prove their manhood, Kevin or Doc (Rivers)?”

The Suns acknowledged they were thinking of Johnson on Wednesday. “We wanted to win the game for him because he was defending not only himself, but the Phoenix Suns,” said Charles Barkley, whose 33-point performance was his third consecutive 30-point game. “It would have been a letdown for us not to win tonight and Friday night.”

They never let up, but the Lakers didn’t put up a consistent fight. A.C. Green, singled out by Pfund as one of the few consistently competitive players, said he sensed a collective lack of fight on the team.

“You have to have your mind there, to be focused for every game,” he said. “That’s our biggest challenge here. We need to be tougher.”

Laker Notes

The Lakers had eight players in double figures, led by James Worthy with 16 points. Doug Christie had a career-high 14. . . . Christie played point guard in the first quarter and replaced sore-footed Worthy at forward in the second quarter. “I didn’t know when a game like that was going to happen, though I knew it would happen,” Christie said of the loss to Boston last Friday, when he was overwhelmed by Dee Brown. “I still have a lot of mistakes in me, but I’ve just got to try as hard as I can to improve. You can’t expect me to be in midseason form. There are still some mishaps for me, but I’m learning.” . . . A.C. Green became the eighth Laker to reach 5,000 career rebounds.