NBA PLAYOFFS : Real No. 23 Shows Up With 22 Against Spurs

I had a suggestion for Cedric Ceballos of the Lakers before Game 3 to change his luck:

Change his number.

Things were going so badly for Ceballos, I thought maybe he could change his uniform number from 23 to 45. You know, pull one of those Michael Jordan stunts, in reverse.

Luckily for the Lakers, Cedric didn’t need any advice.

He came out shooting Friday night at the Forum, donating 22 points to the Lakers’ relatively easy 92-85 victory over Admiral Robinson, Head of Lettuce Rodman and the rest of the San Antonio Spurs.

Good news, Alamo fans.

The Lakers held the fort.

David Robinson put up his usual big numbers for San Antonio, but I’m not sure what was wrong with Dennis Rodman in this one. Maybe he ate too much pizza.

Ceballos, though, was in top form. He had been a non-factor in Games 1 and 2, which the Lakers lost, scoring a sorry nine points.

Not his usual numbers. Most days, Ceballos could score 4.5 points in, oh, 4.5 seconds.

“If we were going to go down, the blame definitely would have been pointed my way. But I wasn’t going to worry about it,” Ceballos said.

“I felt really good tonight. I was going to go out and be aggressive. I wasn’t going to wait for anybody else to motivate me.”

Inasmuch as he also averaged only 4.5 rebounds in those games, and never has reminded anybody defensively of Michael Cooper, it was obvious that Ceballos had not been supplying the Lakers with the kind of offense that would give them a fighting chance to win this series.

That definitely changed in Game 3. Giving everything he had for 40 long minutes--he played only 55 in the first two games--Ceballos came through with 22 points, 10 rebounds and four steals, looking as good as he has in quite a while.

I had heard speculation--unfounded, as usual--that Ceballos had been so disappointing in the games at San Antonio, the Lakers might be thinking of shuffling their lineup and giving George Lynch a shot at starting. Lynch had played very well in Game 2 off the bench.

Not necessary.

No. 23, West Coast chapter, came out flying.

By halftime, Ceballos already had 15 points and eight boards. He even connected on a couple of three-point shots, giving the Lakers another threat from that range to go with Nick Van Exel.

It was the best news the Lakers could have gotten, that Ceballos was back in form.

Combined with a terrific defensive presence that limited the Spurs in the first quarter to 11 points, the Lakers did an excellent job of protecting their home turf.

This time it was Rodman who had the off night, contributing only three points and an uncommonly low 12 rebounds.

“We did a lot better job boxing out tonight than we did in San Antonio,” Laker Coach Del Harris said.

Dropping those first two games had put the Lakers in the drastic position of having to take four of the next five games from the Spurs. Not likely, but not impossible.

Ceballos said after the victory, “Every game starts fresh. We don’t think about the last ones. We think about the next ones.”

Nothing about the Lakers in Game 3 suggested that theirs was a lost cause. They came out banging, leading by 17 points after one quarter and looking as good at the Forum as they had against Seattle.

Van Exel pulled some more magic tricks out of his hat, and “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” funnyman Vlade Divac also had a nice night with 14 points and 13 rebounds.

“We came out with a lot of energy and effort,” Van Exel said. “We had a lot of time off, time to prepare ourselves.

“Everybody was challenging David (Robinson). That’s going to be the only way we can beat this team.”

By game’s end, the Spurs were waving the white flag, emptying their bench. And Laker play-by-play announcer Stu Lantz put the game in the refrigerator.

The series resumes Sunday at noon, and clearly what the Lakers need to square things at two games apiece is for the Ceballos of Game 3 to show up.

He’ll be easy to spot.

He’s the one wearing 23.