Bruised Lakers Leave a Mark : Pro basketball: Peeler scores 26, Divac and Jones have 25 in 115-99 victory over Spurs.

Deciding against immediately heading for the nearest aid station, the Lakers instead circled the wagons again Wednesday, sent out another fractured lineup to face the hottest team in the league and hoped for the best.

The result?

Purple Hearts all around.

Clearly doing much more than surviving with three of their best eight players out, Vlade Divac still nursing a sore back and thigh and Eddie Jones making the switch to small forward, the Lakers went from gutsy the night before at Denver to downright impressive before 14,175 at the Forum, beating San Antonio, 115-99, and ending the Spurs’ eight-game winning streak.

Point guard Nick Van Exel was the only starter healthy and playing his normal position. No matter. Anthony Peeler got sick twice during the game and still led all scorers with 26 points off the bench, two games after scoring 27 against the Clippers. Jones had 25 points and six rebounds. Divac had 25 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists and six blocks and helped hold David Robinson to 11 points and six rebounds before the All-Star exited midway through the third quarter with a mildly sprained right ankle.

“The guys,” Divac said, “they know we can beat anybody.”

Even while maxing out their health insurance.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “San Antonio, until tonight they were playing the best basketball. We won. We beat them. We beat Seattle--twice. We beat Phoenix. We beat Houston. We can beat everybody.”

As Coach Del Harris noted later, the Lakers were leading when Robinson went out. They also had what turned out to be an insurmountable nine-point cushion when Dennis Rodman was ejected for a flagrant foul on Jones with 4:01 remaining, after Rodman had been held to 10 rebounds, 6 1/2 below his average.

This was the Lakers’ last game before the All-Star break. Their not having to play again until next Wednesday is the good news amid the bad luck of Cedric Ceballos’ hand injury in that it gives them extra time to evaluate the next move.

This much is clear, though. They won’t be pushing any panic buttons or looking to make a quick deal as a knee-jerk reaction, with Ceballos out six to eight weeks, and Elden Campbell and Sam Bowie still out with injuries.

“Chances are, we’ll take those five or six days and decide what to do, which is a luxury we have right now,” General Manager Mitch Kupchak said.

The other is that they have some options, even if none are by choice:

--Kurt Rambis could be signed to a second 10-day contract after his first expires today and, eventually, for the rest of the season as the Lakers try to hold the line with the current team. That scenario is very possible.

--A trade, though nothing even resembling a blockbuster that would require mortgaging any significant part of the future to get someone who may be expendable in two months. More likely, they would look for a player who would come at a relatively small price tag, someone like Lionel Simmons or Johnny Newman who is not playing a vital role elsewhere.

--The CBA or free-agent route. Names like Lloyd Daniels, Trevor Wilson and Fred Roberts, who played for Del Harris in Milwaukee, may come up, at which time the Lakers would evaluate whether they could make a greater impact than Rambis, who has played well the last few games.

“We are going to be somewhat patient and not do something just to do it,” Kupchak said. “He’d have to fit in.”

The Lakers have, however, started to be a little more aggressive on the phones since learning Tuesday afternoon of Ceballos’ impending surgery. That is scheduled for this morning, even though Ceballos did not attend Wednesday’s game because, according to team spokesman John Black, he has flu, an illness that normally causes an operation to be postponed.

“It’s that 24-hour flu,” said Black. “He’ll be healthy by the time he has the surgery.”