Ceballos at a Loss to Explain It : Lakers: After Cleveland wins by 38, forward wonders why he’s not more involved.

Near the end, which, mercifully, came quickly for the Lakers, he sat at his customary spot for a timeout, right next to the bench on the edge of the scorer’s table. And even when play resumed and he had been replaced for garbage time, Cedric Ceballos stayed there for a moment and wondered if he should say something.

Should he say something about not being a big enough part of the offense? Should he demand the ball more, as some teammates have encouraged him to do?

Ceballos decided to remain silent, much the way the Lakers had been silenced Wednesday night in a 117-79 trouncing by the Cleveland Cavaliers at Gund Arena that halted the winning streak at five games and marked the third-worst defeat in franchise history. Their fastest game of the season, one hour 58 minutes, only seemed to drag on for a week.

Along the way, Ceballos played 31 minutes but got only 11 shots, making five, while contributing 11 points and seven rebounds. The night before, he scored 18 points in the first quarter, but had only five shots over the final 17:22 as the Lakers rallied from a 16-point deficit with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter for a double-overtime victory.

This is not only recent history, either. He had only three shots in the fourth quarter of a one-point loss the first week at Milwaukee.

The supposed go-to guy is leading the team with a 19.7 scoring average and is second only to Vlade Divac with 8.8 rebounds. But the supposed go-to guy is also wondering if he really is the primary option in the offense, the role he was supposed to assume after being acquired from the Phoenix Suns in late September.

Point: He has taken 48 more shots than any other Laker.

Counterpoint: He is averaging 16.2 shots a game, barely more than the 15 he got last season while playing with Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle.

“It’s not really frustrating,” Ceballos said after the Lakers’ biggest loss since April 22, 1990, when Pat Riley benched three starters at Portland to rest for the playoffs. “I know I have a knack for fighting inside and getting loose balls. But it’s just a situation where you tell me how it’s going to be and then it doesn’t happen, and that kind of clicks in my mind.

“I can’t go to the coach and say I want this. I can’t go to the point guard and say I want this. I think it’s too frustrating to everyone to do that.”

But . . .

“I feel like doing it a lot of times,” he said. “I always cry wolf about it.”

Though tempted, he hasn’t spoken up about the lighter-than-expected load because he is concerned in the early going about fitting in as the newcomer, or, as he calls it, the outcast. Besides, he doesn’t want to rock the boat as the Lakers goes through one of their best stretches in about two years.

“Some days, I get lucky and guys pass me the ball and I get opportunities,” he said. “Other times, it’s like day and night.”

Veteran teammates like Sedale Threatt and Sam Bowie and assistant coach Michael Cooper have urged him to step forward and demand the ball more. Ceballos hasn’t felt comfortable enough to do that.

“Crunch time is what he’s missing,” Threatt said. “That’ll come in time. This is a new team. We’ll get 25 or 30 games together and things like that should come together.”

The Lakers only wish there would have been such a thing as crunch time against the Cavaliers. There wasn’t much of anything after early in the second quarter, when Cleveland broke the game open with a 15-4 run sparked by Danny Ferry and then continued to pour it on.

The visitors never got closer than 13 points in the third quarter and went into the final period trailing by 19. A second consecutive monster comeback never materialized for the Lakers, who were outrebounded, 59-30, and surrendered 30 offensive boards to a Cleveland team coming off a four-day rest.

“They were very precise and put on a clinic,” Coach Del Harris said of the Cavaliers, who shot 52.1% and got 16 points from three players. “They beat our butts really bad.”

Bad enough to break--obliterate is more like it--the Lakers’ four-game road winning streak, their longest since Jan. 17-Feb. 1, 1991. Now they need a quick recovery. Houston comes to the Forum on Friday.