The Force Ran Its Course

I believe a little bit in the forces that we can't see," said Pat Riley , coach of the Los Angeles Lakers . "It's nice to know that the force is with you." Fair enough, but last week the Lakers ' force was decidedly visible to one and all, seeing as it came in the towering form of Center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , who led Los Angeles a three-games-to-one advantage over the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA Western Conference semifinals. Down 3-0, the Blazers beat L.A. 108-95 on Sunday, but they still were in a deep hole, because no team in the league's 36 seasons has ever won a best-of-seven series after losing the first three.

It has been perhaps five years since Abdul-Jabbar has been the destroyer he was last week. However long it may have been, "the main difference in me is that back then I didn't need a hair weave," Abdul-Jabbar says. Indeed, though he's 36 now and balding, hair seems to be the only thing he has lost. Against Portland he played an average of 40.3 minutes, scored 33.3 points a game and blocked 5.3 shots. "When you start making concessions to age," he says, "age will take over." When the Lakers needed him most, Abdul-Jabbar conceded nothing to the Trail Blazers and their center, Wayne Cooper. "They have some great players," said Cooper, "but when you speak of the Lakers you speak of Kareem."

In the first game of the series, Abdul-Jabbar played only 34 minutes because of foul trouble, but when he was in the game Los Angeles outscored Portland 89-60. When he was on the bench, the Blazers outscored L.A. 37-29. And while those numbers illustrated Abdul-Jabbar 's importance to the Lakers , they also indicated how shallow the Lakers ' bench—which had been one of the deepest in the league—has become.

Three weeks ago the Lakers looked highly vulnerable. They had lost five of their last 10 regular-season games and were hardly the same team that had fashioned a Pacific Division-winning 58-24 regular season. Reserve Forward Bob McAdoo , who contributed mightily to L.A. 's title last year, dislocated the fourth toe on his right foot on Feb. 16 and has been sidelined ever since. But as substantial a blow as McAdoo 's injury was, the Lakers could absorb it because rookie Forward James Worthy was playing so spectacularly in McAdoo 's absence. But then Worthy was lost for the season when he broke his left leg in a game with Phoenix on April 10. "James's injury had a big impact on the team psychologically," Riley says. "It was disruptive because suddenly guys were having to play more minutes and play different positions, and our whole substitution rotation had to change."

Los Angeles had worn teams down with its bench all season, getting nearly 30 points a game from just Worthy and McAdoo . Without those two, the edge the Lakers had enjoyed over most teams had been drastically reduced. Many observers wrote Los Angeles off as a threat for the NBA title. "We had grown very dependent on Bob and James," says Forward Jamaal Wilkes , "but the injuries and then people's reactions to them drew us closer together because all we had was us. Our feeling was, 'Don't send us roses. We're not dead yet.' "

If the Lakers were to become the first team since the 1968-69 Boston Celtics to successfully defend a league championship, they would have to do it with Mark Landsberger as their first forward off the bench. Landsberger had played in only 39 games during the season—he logged all of 25 minutes during January—and averaged just 2.5 points a game. Not since the 1979-80 season, when he was picked up from Chicago in midseason to help in the Lakers ' championship drive, has Landsberger been a factor.

"For us to win in the playoffs," says L.A. Guard Norm Nixon , "we have to string the game out and make teams run with us." They did exactly that, roaring off to a 29-12 lead in Game 1 as Portland , which had gotten to the semis by upsetting Seattle 2-0 in their miniseries, made repeated ball-handling errors. "If you turn the ball over," said Portland Forward Mychal Thompson after the final buzzer, "their eyes get as big as silver dollars. And when they get it, it's like somebody let go a rubber band." The Lakers ' break was usually as devastating in the first and fourth quarters against Portland as it had been when they won the title with it last season, but in the middle of each game it bogged down. "Our guys come in eager to run," said Riley , "then fatigue sets in and they settle for going in to Kareem."

And you don't have to be a coaching genius to tell your team to feed the ball to the second-most-prolific scorer—33,169 points through Sunday—in NBA history. But by the eve of Game 2, the Los Angeles papers had just about decided that beneath Portland Coach Jack Ramsay 's shiny dome lay the fount of all basketball knowledge. Ramsay was variously credited with having invented the fast break generally and the one the Lakers were using specifically. Riley got into the spirit by labeling Ramsay "a coach's coach" and "the master," all of this after Ramsay 's team had just been smoked by 21 points, 118-97, in the first game, with Abdul-Jabbar getting 32 points.

Riley still didn't get much credit when he decided to stay with his regulars—except newly acquired Steve Mix, who replaced Forward Kurt Rambis—at the start of the fourth quarter of the second game, while Ramsay rested his starting guards, Jim Paxson and Darnell Valentine . "When I saw them coming in with subs, I told the players this was the time to make our run," Riley said later. "Hey, this is winning time. The players can rest in the summer."

The Lakers came from four down at the end of the third period to go ahead by three points early in the fourth, while Paxson and Valentine were on the bench. Abdul-Jabbar played 44 minutes, including the entire second half, and hit 15 of 20 shots for 37 points while leading the Lakers in assists with seven and blocks with three. "It wasn't only that he got a lot of points," said Wilkes , "it was when and how he got them. Everybody was banging on him, but he was determined we weren't going to lose." Portland still had a chance to win at the end, but when Valentine traveled and dribbled the ball into Nixon 's hands on successive plays, the Trail Blazers ran out of time and lost 112-106. "Kareem was just incredible," Ramsay said. "I don't know if I've ever seen him play as well, and I've seen him have some great games."