Golden State Leaves the Lakers Bewildered and Beaten, 121-99 : Pro basketball: Warriors are off to their best start since Philadelphia days. Los Angeles, meanwhile, is ‘a disaster,’ coach says.

Increasing their degree of difficulty, the Lakers trailed by 22 points at the start of the fourth quarter this time and hoped for at least another graceful exit, only to get something much worse.

A belly flop.

The night after erasing an 18-point deficit with 12 minutes to go against Denver at the Forum to force overtime, the Lakers could not delay the inevitable against Golden State. They should not have wanted to. They should only have worried about escaping Oakland Coliseum Arena on Saturday with whatever remained of their scalps.

“We played poorly,” Laker Coach Del Harris said after the Warriors’ 121-99 rout before 15,025. “There’s no two ways around it. Hopefully now that we have this segment behind us, we can have a good week ahead. Six games since last Friday is a tough row to hoe, and I thought we held together pretty well. But tonight, we were a disaster.

“At halftime, I said there wasn’t one thing to talk about. I said our problem was basketball.”

The problems with the problem started to mount early, the Warriors needing only about 8 1/2 minutes to build an 11-point lead. That would become 19 by late in the second quarter, when Golden State beat the Laker defense back with regularity for easy transition baskets, and then 24 on several occasions in the third period.

The comeback never came, only more water inside the boat.

“I hope the guys were thinking that--that we weren’t really out of it,” said Tony Smith, who provided the only real Laker highlight with five three-pointers in the fourth quarter to set a team single-quarter record for three-pointers. “But the effort that we came with (Friday) night, we just didn’t come with that tonight. We were in kind of a funk.”

With Smith going five of nine and four Warriors taking at least five three-pointers, the teams set an NBA record with 48 long-range attempts, breaking the mark of 47 accomplished twice, including Friday night when Phoenix played Seattle. Latrell Sprewell made only one of his six attempts from there, but still finished nine of 18 overall while scoring a game-high 24 points for Golden State.

Cedric Ceballos led the Lakers--who shot only 34.6% overall--with 20 points and Smith had 18. Nick Van Exel had 12 points and 10 assists, Vlade Divac 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Golden State came in looking to improve to 5-0 and set a Bay Area-era record best start, trailing only the 9-0 opening by Wilt Chamberlain and Philadelphia in 1960. These Warriors not only had beaten three 1994 playoff teams on the road in the first four games, but did so without key elements Chris Webber (unsigned) and Chris Mullin (injured). One of the victories came after trailing by 17 points, another by 11.

Strange twists abound with this team, the latest being Don Nelson, the coach and general manager, volunteering to resign and move upstairs if that will help make Webber happy. The few people Nelson has to answer to in an organization he once owned a piece of told him to stay put.

In the meantime, they play on.

“I don’t even think we’re very good yet,” Nelson said. “I think we’re going to be real good.”

The Lakers are having a tough time with the “going to be” part. Again shaking up the lineup while starting Chris Gatling and Rod Higgins at the forward spots that (they hope) eventually will belong to Webber and Mullin, the Warriors gave the visitors an overdose of speed the night after muscle did the Lakers in at the Forum against Denver, going for 64 points in the first two quarters and a commanding 17-point lead by intermission.

By the end of the third quarter, the Warrior lead was up to 90-68, and the Lakers, shooting 33.8%, were summoning ghosts of the night before. That didn’t mean any had to listen.