Lakers in a Real Slump : Pro basketball: Nuggets bury them in first three-game losing streak of season, 88-74.

So that’s what it feels like to lose three in a row.

Oh, the feeling is from this game alone?

The good news around the Forum today is that the defense that has so troubled Laker Coach Del Harris of late is no longer the most pressing problem. To those concerns came the counterbalance Friday night before 14,493.

Denver Nuggets 88, Lakers 74.

“That’s a good point,” Harris said. “We found something worse than our defense.”

In that case, the Lakers got 75 points. The problem is, only the ones during the game count for real, so they tied the all-time Los Angeles-era team record for worst output in a game, set originally against Cleveland on Dec. 19, 1990, and it took a dunk by George Lynch with 15 seconds left just to get even. The 71 points by the Minneapolis Lakers against St. Louis in 1955-56 still stand alone for the franchise low.

“Is that right?” said Denver Coach Gene Littles, suffering through a rough stretch himself. “So tell ‘em welcome to the club.”

Vlade Divac’s 27 points and 15 rebounds could carry the Lakers only so far. That happens when you shoot 36.5%, the shooting guard, Eddie Jones, goes two of 13 from the field and no one else gets more than five rebounds. And it doesn’t help when Dikembe Mutombo has eight blocks, to go with 21 rebounds and 10 points.

“Our jump shots were not falling, so we tried to go inside,” Jones said. “That was like going right to their game. He (Mutombo) was sending shots everywhere.”

Said Divac: “It was the wrong man, the wrong place and the wrong time.”

Mutombo rejected that notion. Why not? He rejected everything else.

“We shut off their guards and forwards outside and made them come inside,” he said. “Then my presence might have affected them a little bit.”

Yeah, and the Lakers are a little disappointed to be on a three-game losing streak for the first time all season, with two of the losses having come at home. Adding injury to injury, all-star Cedric Ceballos left the game with 6 1/2 minutes remaining with a sprained right thumb, the same injury that just sent Sam Bowie to the injured list. Ceballos was taken to the hospital for X-rays. Results were not immediately available.

The Lakers used to be in exclusive company, joined by only Orlando, Phoenix, Indiana, San Antonio and Sacramento as teams that had not lost three in a row. Not that there hadn’t been chances--this was the fourth time they came into a game with a two-game losing streak.

They avoided the hat trick each time before, thanks in part to fortunate scheduling. The first two instances, both before the season was two weeks old, the Timberwolves and Clippers were served up. In mid-January, it was the floundering Warriors.

Now it was the Nuggets, losers of eight of their previous nine since Dan Issel resigned as coach and Littles took over, and the shorthanded Nuggets at that. With Robert Pack, the part-time starter at point guard, out for the second game in a row with a sore knee and Brian Williams serving a one-game suspension handed down by the league for leaving the bench and “attempting to involve himself” in a scuffle Wednesday, they dressed only 10 players.

Despite poor shooting, the Lakers still managed to build a 34-31 lead. That was a significant moment, that three-point cushion with 4:42 left before intermission, because it was one of the last good things they saw before being swept under.

Denver finished the first half with a 13-2 run, good for a 44-36 advantage as Rodney Rogers, who moved from small forward to power forward to take Williams’ spot, had 12 points and Mutombo added 13 rebounds and five of his blocks. Come the third quarter, the Nuggets pushed that run to 24-6 and a 55-40 lead with 8:07 to go in the period.

The Lakers didn’t even score their 60th point, a modest enough goal for a team averaging 107.1 coming in, until Divac’s jumper with 9:53 left. From there, they mounted a modest comeback to get within 76-70 with 5:02 remaining and then 80-72 with 3:17 showing, only to have those last efforts fizzle.