Lakers Get Chance to Cut Their Losses : Pro basketball: Van Exel, Ceballos lead 115-104 victory over slumping Warriors.

They knew that people would have been wondering, or worse. They knew that the critics who doubted the 20-11 start would have become the vocal majority.

“In the NBA, there’s an old (saying) among veteran people that people start coming out of the woodwork with excuses and problem and criticisms and everything else after you start losing three in a row,” Laker Coach Del Harris said. “The weaker attitudes start showing and that sort of thing. So it’s always good if you can avoid those losing streaks and keep some of those various little petty complaints to a minimum.”

Friday night, before 13,182 at the Forum, they kept Golden State to a minimum in the second quarter, giving up only 10 points. That propelled them to an eventual 115-104 victory over the nose-diving Warriors and allowed the Lakers to dodge their first three-game losing streak of the season.

The Warriors (10-22) can have skidding row to themselves, or at least share it with the Clippers, the next Laker opponent, in the Pacific Division. The Lakers, facing a team that had already beaten them by 22 and 24 points, got back on their feet as Nick Van Exel had 24 points and 14 assists, Cedric Ceballos had 24 points and 10 rebounds and Vlade Divac added 16 points and 12 rebounds.

“People are surprised we are where we are right now,” Tony Smith said after contributing 15 points off the bench. “We dropped two games in a row, and both were pretty bad. I think people started to look and say, ‘OK, let’s see their next game and see are they going to fold up or are they going to bounce back.’ We proved we could bounce back.

“That was the main part of Del’s pregame speech to us--not let the losing streak reach three games. We knew there were people out there who would start to lose respect for us. That’s worth a lot in this league.”

The Lakers lost much of their 20-point fourth-quarter lead, the Warriors getting within eight with two minutes left and forcing Harris to rush his starters back in, but nothing more serious.

“More than the three-game losing streak being something for everyone else, we didn’t want to see three losses in a row for our sake,” said George Lynch, who had 14 points and seven rebounds. “Just for our own benefit.”

The Warriors, who should be used to it by now, got more bad news before the game, when they learned that the sprained left ankle Chris Mullin suffered the day before in practice would sideline him seven to 10 days. This after he had already sat out the first 29 games because of a series of leg injuries and only two outings after his return.

The Warriors were so fazed by the loss of a starter that, after moving Latrell Sprewell to small forward and adding Keith Jennings to the opening lineup in the backcourt, they took a quick nine-point lead. That held up for a seven-point advantage at the end of the first quarter, thanks largely to 57.1% shooting.

Then they got the other bit of bad news.

The second quarter.

Four minutes and 52 seconds passed before the Warriors got their first basket, and the Lakers had already turned the 32-25 deficit into a 37-34 lead. L.A. pushed the cushion to double digits about five minutes later, at 51-40 when Ceballos tipped in a missed alley-oop dunk attempt by Eddie Jones.

Even after a pair of Ceballos free throws gave the Lakers a 55-42 lead with 2.7 seconds left, the Warriors still weren’t safe from themselves. Victor Alexander stepped over the baseline before throwing the ball in, but the Lakers were unable to convert a hurried last shot.

Golden State made four of 20 (20%) from the field, one of four from the line. The 10 points was the best showing by a Laker defense in a quarter since Houston managed seven on Nov. 15, 1991. It was also the Warriors’ worst output of the season.

Even when the visitors recovered for 32 points in the third quarter, the Warriors lost ground because the Lakers scored 35, with Van Exel accounting for 14 of those while making six of eight shots, including a pair of three-pointers. That was worth a commanding 90-74 advantage heading into the fourth.

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Laker Notes

An examination earlier Friday showed Sedale Threatt is still on the original schedule for his return from a stress fracture of the right foot--as soon as 10 more days and as long as 4 1/2 weeks. As long as Threatt is out, Lester Conner probably has a job behind Nick Van Exel and Tony Smith at point guard. “I’m being realistic,” Conner said. “Maybe I’ll give Nick a breather, maybe not. But once Sedale comes back, it’s back off into the sunset.”

* CLIPPERS LOSE

SuperSonics get caught in a massive traffic jam, but they are able to weave their way to 108-101 victory. C2