Lakers’ 30-Point Half Does Them In : Pro basketball: One night after defeating Seattle, L.A. can’t handle Sacramento.

The show at intermission set the stage for what would follow. Paper airplanes, thousands of them, flying from the stands in a promotion in which fans tried to hit targets to win prizes. Most, of course, missed.

So then the Lakers came out for the second half. Most of them missed too.

They were never able to pull out of it. The tailspin that didn’t end until the final buzzer, by which time the Lakers had shot 38.1% overall and managed only 30 points in the second half to lose to the Sacramento Kings, 98-82, before 17,317 at Arco Arena.

Tricky thing that gravity. One night, the Lakers are basking in the light of an impressive, short-handed victory over Seattle. The next, they need some late baskets against a team that, while vastly improved, is still a step down in the standings to avoid the worst scoring half in team history.

They dodged that indignity, set against San Antonio last January, by five points. So much for the Laker highlights.

“I thought Sacramento played a terrific game,” Coach Del Harris said after the Lakers had their four-game winning streak snapped. “We knew coming in it was going to take our best effort to win the game.

“We were right. We just didn’t know they would play this well.”

Indeed, Sacramento, which at 27-20 needs only two more victories to surpass last season’s total, had a hand in the splashdown because of the poor Laker shooting. But the Lakers had an entire arm in it while committing 20 turnovers, about five more than their average, which was good for second in the league coming in.

“Anytime you disintegrate, there’s always a combination of things,” Harris said.

It’s just that immaturity isn’t always on the list. If that is too strong a comment on the Laker performance, especially in the wake of such impressive showings, consider that it came from one of their own.

“We struggled shooting it, and that had a snowball effect,” said Sam Bowie, who had 14 points, five rebounds and three blocks in his second consecutive solid showing since coming off the injured list. “Then we kind of tucked our heads underneath. Before you knew it, we were down by double figures.

“We’re immature at times. We know how to handle success. But we don’t always know how to handle setbacks.”

And that this was the second night of a back-to-back, after an emotional Forum victory over the SuperSonics?

“We’d like to use that excuse,” Bowie said. “But in the NBA, this is a game you should win.”

Then again, Laker headaches often appear in the form of the Kings, winners of four of the five meetings last season, including all three games at Arco. Go back to 1993-94 and Sacramento is 5-1 here in the series.

So what happened at the outset this time, in the first visit of 1994-95, was hardly shocking--Kings 13, Lakers 4. Then, when the visitors had closed to within 27-25 by the end of the opening quarter, Sacramento pulled away again, this time for a 12-point cushion at 46-34 with five minutes left in the half.

Looking to tie Utah for the second-most road victories in the league--16--the Lakers came back again. They never went ahead before intermission, but did cut the deficit to 53-52. And when Elden Campbell opened the third quarter with a dunk, L.A. had its first lead of the night.

That, however, proved to be short lived. The Kings regained the momentum and pulled away again, this time by nine points with 4:55 left in the third. Midway though the fourth period, the lead was up to 14 (87-73) after an 11-1 rally.

Laker Notes

Eddie Jones made only five of 13 shots, but still had 18 points and 10 rebounds, both highs for the Lakers. Olden Polynice had 17 points and 16 rebounds for the Kings. . . . Tony Smith, who had started three games in a row at shooting guard, returned after missing Wednesday’s victory over Seattle because of back spasms, but was not in the opening lineup.