Jones Has a Big Finish for Lakers : Pro basketball: He scores 14 of his 27 points in fourth quarter of 100-89 victory over Sacramento.

Cedric Ceballos was human, Vlade Divac was doing his best work when the other team had the ball, and Nick Van Exel was getting an unscheduled rest, so the Lakers looked for someone else to carry them across the line Friday night.

Eddie Jones was an unlikely target only because of his scrawny frame. Undeterred, he shouldered the responsibility and delivered as the latest hero, making all five of his fourth-quarter shots, including a pair of three-point baskets, and scoring 14 of his game-high 27 points in the final period to lift the Lakers to a 100-89 victory over the Sacramento Kings before 12,637 at the Forum.

Winners of five of their last six and 12 of 15, the Lakers struggled all night to find breathing room against Sacramento, something they should have been used to after last season. But when Jones made consecutive three-pointers with 10:00 and then 9:22 remaining, the lead was 80-71.

Just to make sure, Jones answered every time the Kings closed again. At 94-87, he drove the lane, hung, and dropped in a short jumper. At 96-89, he bolted for a dunk, slamming the door shut for good.

“Just open shots I had to take,” Jones said. “Nothing more. Open shots.”

Said Laker Coach Del Harris of the key three-point shots: “Those were big shots, no question. And he had ‘em all the way. He shot both with a lot of confidence. Those are the kind of things that kept them (the Kings) from having a chance.

“The dunk was kind of the last nail in the coffin.”

The Lakers played most of the way down the stretch without Van Exel, who left the game with 20 seconds to go in the third quarter after getting hit on the hand and stayed on the bench during most of the fourth quarter as Harris went with Jones, Sedale Threatt and Tony Smith in a three-guard alignment. Van Exel returned with 2:05 left.

“The team was going good,” Van Exel said. “He asked me if I wanted to go back in. I said, ‘No, we’re going good.’ Why mess that up?”

The Kings are as big a success story as the Lakers, having come in with the second-biggest turnaround in the league, seven games, and winners of seven of their previous 10 outings.

The Lakers built a seven-point lead in the first quarter, had that erased within 62 seconds, fell behind by four in the second quarter and settled for a 46-46 tie at intermission. Their introduction to the Kings’ improved play inside was getting outrebounded in the first half, 33-22, including 15-8 on offense, with Olden Polynice collecting seven of his 13 boards there.

In the end, Polynice had 18 rebounds--eight on the offensive end--and 16 points, but no other Sacramento big man did any damage on the boards as the Kings finished with a 50-43 advantage. Mitch Richmond added 25 points and Walt Williams had 20.

The Lakers, meanwhile, were solid, if unspectacular, inside. Divac made only five of 14 shots, but countered with 10 rebounds and a career-high eight blocks. Elden Campbell had nine boards and five blocks, and Ceballos, coming off his 50-point explosion, contributed 21 points and eight rebounds.

“The big fellas really did an outstanding job,” Harris said. “Particularly in the second half, when we were able to win the rebounding game after getting outrebounded in the first half. And I thought they played individual defense well. Fourteen blocked shots is really an impressive stat.”

It was also a season high.

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Laker Notes

Little of the success of Cedric Ceballos has been unexpected--not the 22.4 points per game coming in, not the 8.9 rebounds and not the 50.5%. But the 15 three-point shots? That’s unexpected. He was only two of 23 from long distance in the first four seasons of his career as a Phoenix Sun, but has proven respectable as a Laker. In the eight games before Friday, he had three three-pointers on three occasions and two on two others. It was the third on Tuesday against Minnesota, with 5.7 seconds remaining, that made him the first Laker since Gail Goodrich in 1975 to score 50 points in a game. “I had the ability to make the threes, but I wasn’t allowed to shoot them,” Ceballos said of his time with the Suns. “We had a lot of three-point shooters, so there wasn’t the need.” And now? “It’s helped me out a lot,” he said.