Coach in a Quandary : Randy Pfund Is Trying Desperately to Find the Combination for Success, but Criticism Is Mounting as Lakers Struggle to Make Playoffs

The doubts strike in the darkness, as midnight becomes 1 a.m. and 1 bleeds into 2. Some nights, Randy Pfund can find neither sleep nor solutions.

Can I do this, the job I’ve prepared for all my life, the job that’s now consuming me? How can I coax more out of the veterans in less time and play the kids without hurting us? How could I not know how quickly a game can turn? Am I going to be known as the guy who coached the Lakers through their worst season in decades?

“There’s been some nights I’ve walked out of the Forum and just felt like the whole thing is collapsing, and how can we, after so many years of winning here, be going through a struggle like we are,” Pfund said.

“There’s been some times I’ve gone home and felt that overwhelming feeling of ‘Where do I turn?’ But I’ve never, I don’t think, once I’ve sat down, felt like I don’t have some answers, that if we do work on this thing and we do get better at that thing, that we can’t make the next step as a team.”

Recently, though, those steps have been backward.

This wasn’t going to be a championship team, not after Magic Johnson retired again and his contract pushed the club over the salary cap and limited its moves. But it was a decent team, able to beat the Chicago Bulls twice and Portland three times, and to win close games, evidence of experience and tenacity.

After a 92-87 victory at San Antonio on March 15, they were 33-28 and home for six games, “in perfect position,” Pfund believed, to improve their playoff seeding.

But a 101-100 loss to the Spurs two nights later worried him momentarily, and he realized he had real reason for concern after losing a 20-point lead in a 129-119 defeat to the Boston Celtics on March 19.

Every fault had become magnified. The running offense he had installed with success at midseason was leaving defensive gaps, which opponents were exploiting with ease. Prevent Sedale Threatt from getting the ball to James Worthy or Byron Scott, and the Lakers’ offense was shut down. Adjustments? He had few options, and the players seemed to sense his uncertainty over which option he should choose.

“Instead of bringing Terry Teagle off the bench, like we’d do last year, this year we’ve got Anthony Peeler and Duane Cooper,” Pfund said. “Some of our depth has been negated by the fact those young players, and Doug (Christie) now, are logging some significant minutes for us and are still rookies.”

Feeling he had to learn what Christie can do--and feeling secure with a 14-point lead--he let the rookie from Pepperdine start the fourth quarter against Boston. Dee Brown ran Christie ragged, rallying the Celtics and touching off a slump so profound that the Lakers might miss the playoffs for the first time in 17 seasons.

“A purist would say, ‘You play Sedale, you don’t lose,’ but you don’t do that when you’re trying to develop younger players,” Pfund said. “We’re trying to do something very difficult: win and develop young players at the same time. It’s nice when you win, but sometimes it hurts.”

Should Pfund have realized the San Antonio and Boston defeats would hurt badly enough to trigger a 1-10 stretch? If he had, could he have stopped it?

Nothing in seven years as an assistant to Pat Riley and Mike Dunleavy prepared him for this. He had to blend Christie and Benoit Benjamin into the lineup in late February; he has had to milk an aching Worthy and a fading Scott, keep Vlade Divac focused and direct a team that has no floor leader.

However, he still has the support of General Manager Jerry West, who denied reports that he and owner Jerry Buss will fire Pfund after the season.

“Jerry and I have had no discussions about that at all,” West said. “We know we don’t have a very balanced team: we have six guards, three centers and three forwards. So, he hasn’t been dealt the perfect hand. And Earvin Johnson’s departure was unsettling, particularly for him.

“You also have to look at the inconsistency of our players. Obviously, we need to upgrade our talent in certain areas and I think we’ll be able to do that next year. Until I hear something from Jerry Buss, we’re satisfied.”

Buss declined to comment, deferring all questions to West.

Pfund, 41, said that, basically, West has been supportive.

“I’m sure there are times he’s not so supportive, but that’s his right,” he added.

If West differs with his coach, he won’t say so publicly.

“It really doesn’t matter,” West said. “You say coaches in this league look alike and play alike? No. Everyone has different things they do.”

Deciding what he wants to do has not been easy for Pfund.

“It’s been very chaotic in his mind, trying not to take personal blame for what’s going on on the court,” A.C. Green said. “I think he’s getting more poised and mature. He’s learning how to control the momentum of a game, know when to try and read matchups and call certain defensive plays. . . . He’s done a good job, considering this is his first year.”

Divac said: “I still have confidence in him. I don’t know about the rest of the team.”

Pfund pales in comparison to the hard-driving Riley, who won four NBA titles, and to the cocky Dunleavy, a clever defensive strategist. And even Dunleavy’s team last season lost seven of its last 11 games, finished at 43-39 and made the playoffs only by winning its finale. Mild-mannered by nature and a history teacher by training, Pfund lacks his predecessors’ presence--but that doesn’t mean he lacks their knowledge.

Asked to grade his performance, Pfund laughed.

“I always felt it was important for students to grade themselves,” he said. “My students always took advantage of me, too.”

It’s not a stretch to imagine his players are doing the same.

“Randy is not as intense as Riley and not as loose as Mike,” Scott said. “He’s trying to find his identity. He can motivate us to a certain extent, but he has to get to the point where he understands himself as a coach.”

Scott praised Pfund’s preparation, but left unanswered whether Pfund has learned to improvise when plans go awry.

“He’s a rookie coach and he’s going to make mistakes,” Scott said. “He has to go through a painful learning process. When we’ve gotten the matchups we wanted, (the Lakers have thrived). When we haven’t, you start to think, ‘I probably could have put that player in, I just didn’t think about it at the time.’ ”

Pfund realizes his limitations but also is proud of Laker accomplishments.

“Certainly, I’m like a rookie player,” he said. “There are some things I’ve learned. I know we’ve won (11) games by three points or less, more than any team in the league, so we must be doing something right. We’re (5-1) in overtime games, and those things can or cannot be coach-related at times. I’d feel a lot worse if we were the other way, I guarantee you.

“And I know people look at experience as being one of the main ingredients in this profession, but you can look at a couple of guys who I respected a heck of a lot as coaches at the college and pro levels who started out as coaches this year, (Jerry Tarkanian) and Doug Moe, and it didn’t work out for whatever reason, I don’t know.”

Still, although another coach might have won more games, that wouldn’t have made much of a difference this season and it wouldn’t have made rebuilding any less a priority. It’s conceivable that if Pfund learns anything from those losses, the Lakers might gain later, when an infusion of youth makes this more “his” team.

His first lesson, his critics say, is in how to set his rotation. Cooper became the quarterback the team needed in leading a 20-point comeback against Phoenix last Tuesday, but Pfund didn’t play him in the next game at Golden State. Despite Pfund’s commitment to youth, he waited until April 4 to remove Worthy from the starting lineup and replace him with third-year forward Elden Campbell, a better defensive player. And this on a team whose defense has melted: The Lakers have given up 100 or more points in 52 games, seven more than last season.

“You don’t know if you’re going to play 15 minutes or eight, and the starters don’t know if they’re going to play 30 or 20,” Scott said. “Not having a set rotation is tough for the players and tougher for the coaches. . . . He’s trying, as a rookie coach, to please people and win games.”

Pfund cited injuries as the reason for his moves and says he resisted other moves, such as benching Worthy earlier, in an effort to promote stability and fortify Worthy’s confidence. His key changes were moving Green into the lineup at off-guard when Scott had an ankle injury, and benching Divac but later reinstating Divac after Sam Perkins was traded. He used Peeler a lot early but later looked past the rookie from Missouri. He has sat Cooper since Christie arrived and has hardly used James Edwards--a West favorite--since Benjamin was worked into the rotation.

“If you’re not winning basketball games, you’d better be looking at ways to improve your team and usually, unless there’s a clear-cut difference in your talent level, that means you continue to try to motivate through playing time and you continue to look at guys,” Pfund said.

Motivate , there’s a word. Pfund doesn’t often yell at his players, perhaps not often enough to please West or create the impression he’s demanding, but he says that’s not his style.

“If I look at the numbers of this team, we’ve got two guys playing their best basketball they’ve played for us here statistically, and that’s Vlade and A.C.,” Pfund said. “And Sedale Threatt is having a better season than he had a year ago. That’s three key guys producing at a higher pace than they have in the past.

“Unfortunately, that hasn’t turned into more victories for us. I have to look at how productive players are and whether they’re performing at a level similar (to) or better than they were a year ago. . . . Are we getting our players to play at a similar level or better level than they have before? That’s what motivation is.”

His goals remain clear: to improve his players’ skills, and to maintain the Lakers’ winning tradition, whatever the personal cost.

“The games are a challenge to me,” Pfund said. “When I walk on the floor every night, I take it as a very personal challenge to match wits or match moves with the opposing coach. This is a game of matchups and mismatches. You can’t play the game for the players but you can try to create the best situation for them and run plays that give them a chance to be successful.”