L.A. Steals Chicago’s Air Game : Pro basketball: Lakers score 108-105 victory while Bulls concentrate on saga of Jordan’s rumored return.

No one here would have thought it possible, but the basketball game turned out worse than the waiting game for this town and its Bulls, together anticipating the return of the Air apparent only to lose sight of more pressing business.

By the time they knew what hit them Saturday night, it was too late. The wounded Lakers, this time with Nick Van Exel and Randolph Keys joining the cast of thousands previously sidelined, turned a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit into an emotional 108-105 victory before 22,404 at the United Center, most of whom would have been satisfied simply with a Michael Jordan sighting.

There was talk before tipoff that Jordan would watch the game from one of the luxury suites, but there was no such sighting, let alone a puff of smoke, to signal his return. File it with the rest of the unsubstantiated rumors ranging from the realistic to the ridiculous, the latest being that his announcement will come Monday and the return March 24 against Orlando, but only if team executive Jerry Krause quits or is fired.

Against this background, the game became the undercard. The Lakers went along for a while, trailing, 87-73, at the start of the fourth quarter, before deciding to play more than a minor distraction.

Within about four minutes, the deficit was only four. With 1:26 remaining, they took the lead on Anthony Peeler’s layup, a major installment on his team-high 22 points. With 14.9 seconds to go, they took control for good when Sam Bowie, one possession after making a twisting lay-in, made two free throws for a 106-100 advantage.

The Bulls were done. The Lakers, faced with their first four-game losing streak of the season and their first 0-4 trip since 1964-65, were back.

“People won’t understand,” said Bowie, who had 13 points while making his third consecutive start at power forward. “This win was very big for us in many senses. To be able to come in at the end of the trip, with all the Mike hype, with Nick out, we were short as it is, we had lost three in a row and then we were down 14, it was a huge, huge win. There are so many reasons this win is bigger than the one win that will go down in the standings.”

Said Antonio Harvey, who played a key role off the bench with a putback off the offensive boards for a 102-98 lead with 49 seconds left: “One-and-three isn’t something we were thinking about coming on this trip. But when we’re facing 0-4, with those odds, we’ll take 1-3.”

Van Exel, the starting point guard and leading scorer among active Lakers, was lost to back spasms, something he had been trying to play through for several games. Backup small forward Keys went out after playing only two minutes when a strained abdominal muscle forced him to be taken off the court in a wheelchair.

It was all enough to cause Coach Del Harris some doubt.

“If you would have talked to me at the hotel during the day,” he said, “I didn’t think we could win it. I talked a good game to the guys. But when I heard Nick would not be playing, I thought, man, this is going to be tough.

“I don’t know how (we did it). We had a game plan. But after watching films of Chicago and knowing what we had, I thought it was going to be monumental.”

It was.

The Lakers did it by outscoring the Bulls in the fourth quarter, 35-18, and outshooting them in that same span, 56.5%-31.8%. The reporter in the Chicago locker room had it wrong when he asked B.J. Armstrong if this kind of showing sends a message to Jordan.

“Right now,” Armstrong said, “this should send a message to all of us. We have to get ourselves together and start winning ballgames.”

But they’ll hold a spot for him anyway.