Lakers Exploit the Bad and Ugly

Shawn Bradley looked down on the question and the questioner.

“Kind of weird?” the Dallas Mavericks’ 7-foot-6 center said, repeating the inquiry. “It’s absolutely pathetic.”

For the Mavericks. For the Lakers, though, the record-setting third quarter Sunday night before 17,364 at the Forum, and the 87-80 victory it became thanks to a 26-0 run, was something else. Something like picturesque.

Kind of weird is the Mavericks missing all 15 field-goal attempts and scoring two points in the period--the entire period--about the same time the Sacramento Kings were finishing off the Seattle SuperSonics upstate, allowing the Lakers to move back within a half-game of the lead in the Pacific Division and keep pace with the victorious Houston Rockets for No. 3 in the West.

Kind of weird is the Lakers adding Nick Van Exel to their casualty list because of a sore right knee and having only nine players available, a first even on a season that has become so ruled by injuries, and then making history.

Kind of weird, indeed, no matter that Bradley’s correction was accurate. Kind of embarrassing too.

“Of course it is,” Maverick Derek Harper said. “I don’t think I have to say that.” Their two-point total in the third quarter--a pair of free throws by Harper with 1:51 remaining--was not only an NBA record since the inception of the shot clock in 1954-55, it was twice as bad as anything that has come before. Two other teams had at least scored four, the Kings against the Lakers on Feb. 4, 1987 and the Buffalo Braves versus the Milwaukee Bucks on Oct. 21, 1972.

The league does not keep records for the number of teams who have gone without a basket for a period. But it’s not even the first time this has happened to a Laker opponent: Sacramento had four free throws and nothing else in that memorable first quarter at the Forum in 1987.

“I came to the bench with about two minutes left and the guys said, ‘They haven’t scored yet,’ ” Laker guard Eddie Jones said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I was more amazed than anything.”

The Mavericks’ problems actually began at the end of the second quarter--their last field goal came with 1:05 remaining, followed only by two free throws before intermission. Then, they really began.

A 16-point lead with 20 seconds left in the half, and a 14-point cushion at the break, were erased when Derek Fisher dunked in Bradley’s face with 7:48 remaining in the third, part of the game-high and career-high 21 points from the rookie point guard who replaced Van Exel. That made the score 52-51 in favor of the Lakers, the run 15-0 for the quarter and 17-0 overall. And still the Mavericks were about eight minutes away from their next basket.

When it reached 59-51, Dallas called timeout. The Mavericks then came out and missed two shots on that possession. Then one the next. They were at least spared the next time down.

A.C. Green had the ball stripped.

The offensive explosion then followed:

Two free throws by Harper with 1:51 left.

The Mavericks had gone almost an entire quarter--from 19.8 seconds remaining in the second to 1:51 remaining in the third--without a point. They had been outscored, 26-0, before Harper’s free throws. They had been on the wrong end of a 24-0 charge that period. The very wrong end.

Not that they were going to get off that easy. The Mavericks still had enough time to miss two more field goals, making them 0 for 15 in those 12 minutes. Only when Kobe Bryant connected on a three-point shot with 42 seconds left was Dallas in the clear, if that’s what you want to call being outscored, 27-2, in a quarter while failing to make a shot and committing nine turnovers.

“I don’t know if there’s anything to say,” Maverick Coach Jim Cleamons said. “I’ve never seen an exhibition of basketball like that in all my years in this league.”

So while the Lakers played without Elden Campbell and Travis Knight for the third consecutive games, and without Van Exel for the first time all season, the Mavericks just played without.

Without energy.

Without a clue.

Without a basket.

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Shooting Blanks

The fewest points scored in one quarter since the advent of the shot clock in 1954:

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Date Team Opp. Pts 4-6-97 Dallas Lakers 2 2-4-87 Sacra. Lakers 4 10-21-72 Buffalo Milwaukee 4 11-13-54 Syracuse Milwaukee 5 11-21-56 New York Ft. Wayne 5 12-15-90 Cleveland Chicago 5 12-1-81 Utah Lakers 5

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