Lakers Have a Shot, but Can’t Get It Off : Pro basketball: Johnson is 2-1 as coach and not happy with after blow opportunities in 95-92 loss to the SuperSonics.

Even a bad shot would have been good. Anything but what the Lakers got Thursday night with the game on the line at Seattle Coliseum and a chance to beat the league’s winningest team.

No shot.

Only under these circumstances could the Lakers battle back from a 15-point deficit, take the Seattle SuperSonics, winners of six in a row coming in, to the wire on the road and feel bad. Getting a 24-second violation on a critical possession tends to do that to a team, especially when the potential upset ends in a 95-92 loss.

“Any loss is bad,” James Worthy said. “I don’t know all the details. I do know we missed an opportunity.”

None bigger than after the Lakers got the ball when Elden Campbell intercepted Gary Payton’s bad pass with about 48 seconds left. Down, 93-92, they looked confused, then got the ball to Worthy, as Coach Magic Johnson wanted. But with the shot clock winding down, Worthy thought Campbell, who scored 12 of his team-high 19 points in the fourth quarter, slipped free a few feet away. When Worthy tried to deliver the ball, it was knocked away, leading to the 24-second violation with 23.9 remaining.

Still, the Lakers had a chance. After Shawn Kemp was fouled intentionally and made one free throw, the last of his 28 points, they called a timeout. Then another, without even breaking the huddle. It was the second game in a row Johnson has done that in the closing seconds, and Tuesday against Minnesota at the Forum it resulted in Nick Van Exel driving the lane for the winning layup.

This time, it resulted in Tony Smith slicing down the left side, looking for a Seattle defender to come out to meet him so a Laker would be free. Except that when no SuperSonic stepped forward, Smith took an off-balance 15-footer with 12 seconds left that missed.

The SuperSonics got the rebound and passed it ahead to Payton, who was fouled. He made one free throw with six seconds left for the final 95-92 margin.

It was the Lakers’ 10th consecutive defeat here, their longest road losing streak. “We had our chances, which makes it worse,” said Smith, who had 15 points and six assists in 44 minutes.

Added Johnson, now 2-1 as coach with Houston and Atlanta coming next: “They’ve got to believe they can win. Because they have blown so many of them, I don’t know if they believe they can win.”

Seattle Coach George Karl welcomed Johnson’s arrival, hoping that interest in what normally would be just another game would instead serve as the spark to make sure his team does not come out flat. So when Johnson got a nice ovation during pregame introductions, Karl was one of those applauding.

By the time Kemp flew down the right side and brought the crowd to its feet again with a thunderous dunk off a long lob pass from Payton, the SuperSonics had a 22-10 lead. That kind of spark. The cushion then became 39-24 and held at 15 as late as 43-28 in the second quarter.

The Lakers responded. In position to get shredded again after losing the first three games of the season to Seattle by an average of 16.7 points, they closed to within 51-47 at intermission when Worthy made a three-pointer with 0.8 remaining. Finally, the deficit was erased in the third quarter with a 14-4 run capped by Smith’s three-pointer that made it 67-67.