Role Reversal: Clippers Crush Hapless Lakers : Pro basketball: They make it two in a row by taking 28-point halftime lead in 109-84 victory.

They had been stepped on more than the concrete in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater.

They had been batting practice.

They had been has-beens.

But that was no Magical Misery Tour that pulled into the Forum on Friday night. That was Clipper frustrations, partially eroded by beating Milwaukee two nights earlier, flooding out all at once and sweeping away the flat-footed Lakers, 109-84, before 10,768.

“We had been frustrated,” said Loy Vaught, who always seems to play well against the cross-town rivals and this time contributed 19 points and a team-high 15 rebounds. “I don’t know--that first win triggered it for us. We got that first taste of victory, and it tasted sweet.”

This was pretty good too, a shocker not only because it was a Clipper victory but because it was a dominating Clipper victory. Because the Clippers now have a two-game winning streak.

“I think we surprised ourselves a little bit,” said Malik Sealy, who replaced the injured Terry Dehere at shooting guard and responded with 25 points and eight rebounds. “We just wanted to continue to work hard. Every game that we were losing, I think we gained a little confidence in ourselves.”

So they came in with several tons of confidence. Then they dropped it all on the Lakers, making the hosts, of all people, play the doormat.

“Surprising,” Vlade Divac said after getting 21 points and a game-high 17 rebounds in the loss. “But see what happens. Only two things: We deserved to lose and they deserved to win.”

There was little doubt about that. The Clippers led by as many as 32 points--67-35 early in the third quarter--and were challenged only once after the opening quarter. That’s when the Lakers, their four-game home winning streak a memory, threatened by getting within 11 early in the fourth quarter, before the rally stalled without ever really gaining speed.

“I thought our guys gave a pretty decent effort in the second half,” Laker Coach Del Harris said. “But we have to pay the price for what happened at the start.”

About that worst-team-in-the-league stuff? Try selling it to the Lakers, who were rested and still needed only 6:35 to fall behind by 10 points and finished the first quarter down, 30-16, while committing 11 turnovers, already only about three fewer than their league-best average coming in.

Turned out that was nothing more than a warm-up. The Clippers poured it on in the second quarter, meeting little resistance from the Lakers along the way while turning the game into a blowout, stretching the lead to 26 on Lamond Murray’s dunk with 7:23 left in the half, to 27 on a free throw by Sealy with 49 seconds to go and, finally, to 28 on Pooh Richardson’s three-pointer with 26 seconds remaining.

That’s where it was at halftime, 63-35. Any resemblance to the Clippers was purely coincidental.

The Lakers got booed loudly four times before intermission, then the halftime show got booed even worse. At least their crowd showed signs of life.

Notes

So who else besides the Clippers was happy with Wednesday’s streak-breaking win over the Milwaukee Bucks? Apparently the members of the Miami Heat, who, believe it or not, did not want to share the spot in the record book with 17 consecutive losses to open a season. “Our team would be able to play with that Clippers team head to head and pound for pound,” former Heat center Scott Hastings told the Sun Sentinel of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. “We could even get all the guys together today and beat them, even with me and (Jon Sundvold) coming out of retirement.” Miami broke its streak by winning at the Sports Arena and finished with 15 victories. . . . Rebounding remains a problem for the Lakers--they went into the game 22nd in the league by percentage--but don’t expect them to get heavily involved in trade talks for disgruntled Spur Dennis Rodman. Even if they were convinced he would not become more of a problem than an asset, Rodman’s salary means that it would probably require two key players or one major player to get him, and the Lakers have no interest in going that high.

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