East Becomes a Beast at Forum

The disappointment of Sunday night’s 98-93 loss to the Charlotte Hornets was compounded for the Lakers by the fact that it was another defeat to an Eastern Conference team, especially meaningful to them because it came at home.

“Every team comes in here from the East and beats us,” Robert Horry said. “Now we’ll have to listen to that [talk] that we’re soft.”

An image they didn’t want, that no team with championship aspirations wants, grew again. The Lakers are 7-7 versus the Atlantic and Central divisions--and only 4-4 against those teams at home, with losses to the East on each of the last four Sunday visits.

“We’ve been beaten on Sunday’s, that’s all I can say,” Coach Del Harris said. “Or been beaten by Eastern teams on Sunday when we cannot shoot free throws. It’s that syndrome.”

Oh, that one. Of course, the Lakers have proven capable of shooting poorly from the line against teams of any locale.

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The Hornets were without key reserve Dell Curry, who has been bothered by an injury to his right calf muscle. . . . Corie Blount has played 23, 16 and 12 minutes in the three games since the earlier-than-expected return from a sprained ankle. “He seems to be all right to me, best I can tell,” Harris said. . . . Elden Campbell’s bid to join Derek Harper as the only players in NBA history to improve their scoring average in each of the first eight seasons received a significant boost with the injury to Shaquille O’Neal, but will need another. Campbell, needing to better the 14.9 from 1996-97, was at 15.3 when O’Neal returned and at 15.2 when O’Neal reclaimed his job as the starting center. But the decline in scoring came with the decline in minutes, so Campbell was averaging 14.3 points a game heading into Sunday.