Lakers Go Up, 2-0, and Here’s a Blowout-by-Blowout Account

School is nearly out for the San Antonio Spurs, who showed up Saturday at the Forum just as they had threatened to do, then got paddled again by the Lakers.

So, after two games in this best-of-five series in the National Basketball Assn. playoff series, the Lakers have two victories, the Spurs have none, and at least one Laker is wondering why they’re playing in the first place.

The Lakers took a 2-0 lead against the Spurs by administering another blowout, this one a 122-94 crunch job that resembled their 47-point victory in Game 1, except it took a little longer this time to pull away.

The Spurs promised they would play better, and they did do that, but they still fell 28 points short of matching the Lakers, which is a lot of ground to make up. Maybe too much, the Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said.

“You won’t have a quality playoff when you have a team under .500 in it,” he said, referring to the Spurs’ 35-47 regular-season record. “I don’t think (the series) is too good for the game. It’s probably expecting too much, putting a team that hasn’t done well during the regular season in the playoffs.”

That should be corrected soon. As soon as Wednesday night, the Spurs have a chance to be out of it if the Lakers win Game 3 at San Antonio.

“Either we win or we’ll be packing our bags Thursday,” the Spurs’ Wes Matthews said.

Actually, the Spurs could have almost begun looking for their luggage Saturday after halftime.

“We can create a lot of problems for the other team,” said the Lakers’ Byron Scott, who should know.

Scott sprung loose for 14 points in the third quarter to break open a close game and put the Lakers one victory away from the second playoff round.

“We have to go in there (San Antonio) and close it out,” Maurice Lucas said. “When we get a team down, we’ve got to keep them down, get this over with and move on to the next round.”

For at least a while, the underdog Spurs played the Lakers on even terms. They trailed by only 53-49 at halftime, and the Lakers were down to just one center who wasn’t in foul trouble.

Abdul-Jabbar had three fouls, only to be matched by his first backup, Petur Gudmundsson, who collected three more in only four minutes. At that point late in the first half, Coach Pat Riley called on Mitch Kupchak, and the game swung quickly.

Magic Johnson scored eight of his 30 points in a two-minute stretch when San Antonio was clinging to a surprising 43-39 lead. Four Spur turnovers and a couple of missed free throws later, the Lakers were up by six points.

Kupchak’s contributions in that time span were significant but probably not noticed by many in the sellout crowd of 17,505. After Johnson scored six straight points, Kupchak kept 7-2 Artis Gilmore from getting a rebound that went instead to James Worthy, who scored two of his 24 points to boost the Laker lead from two to four.

On the next play, Kupchak put his battered body in front of Matthews, who charged into him. Johnson scored again to make the Laker lead six points, then when the Spurs got close again, Kupchak scored around Gilmore.

The Spurs didn’t have a lot left the rest of the way, so the Lakers stuck to their running game in the third quarter and were soon out of sight. By the end of the quarter, the lead was 19, and it eventually reached 28 points, 104-76, on Abdul-Jabbar’s dunk five minutes into the fourth quarter.

With that dunk, Abdul-Jabbar reached double figures for the game and Riley quickly took him out. Once again, Abdul-Jabbar was in foul trouble and once again it didn’t really matter, partly because Gilmore had another poor performance.

Abdul-Jabbar finished with 10 rebounds in 21 minutes, while Gilmore had 6 rebounds in 37 minutes but attempted only six shots. Gilmore also had seven turnovers and twice threw the ball over the heads of his guards on simple passes.

If it weren’t for Matthews, who had 30 points, and Jon Sundvold, who had 13 points off the bench, the Spurs would have dropped even more quickly. Lucas took down 10 rebounds to equal Abdul-Jabbar and helped the Lakers to another overwhelming edge on the backboards, 48-28.

That is about the same distance between these two teams. San Antonio’s 35-47 mark was its worst regular-season record in 13 years, a fact that Abdul-Jabbar alluded to as an indication that the NBA playoff system is faulty.

“For us, it means the regular season is of no consequence,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “It just doesn’t mean that much when there are 23 teams and 16 of them make the playoffs. But the league wants to make it this way. They must want to use mirrors or something.”

As you might expect, the Spurs are pretty disheartened by what they’re seeing of themselves.

“Many people feel that we are going to get swept,” Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons said.

Matthews admitted that the Spurs have been disappointing.

“This should be the challenge of a lifetime for us,” he said. “Then we come in and don’t even compete. Fans and everybody else are looking out the corners of their eyes and expecting blowouts before the game even starts.

“We’re better than 88 points one night and 94 the next. I think we’ve been giving the Lakers a little bit too much respect. We have to understand that they put their jocks on just like we do.”

No matter what the situation looks like to the Spurs, Abdul-Jabbar said that the Lakers’ 2-0 advantage means only one thing.

“It just puts us one game away,” he said. “I’m sure they won’t just roll over and die. Can we close it out Wednesday night? We can. I don’t know if we will, but we just might do it.”

Laker Notes In the two games, the Lakers have outrebounded the Spurs, 95-46. Maurice Lucas has 17; David Greenwood leads San Antonio with 10. . . . The Spurs didn’t get much offensive help from Mike Mitchell, who scored only 6 points and shot 3 for 13. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but if I don’t find out in a hurry, it’s vacation time,” Mitchell said. . . . Magic Johnson is making the most of his matchup with Alvin Robertson. Johnson has outscored Robertson, 43-16, and also leads in assists, 31-14. “With Kareem in foul trouble, I had to take more shots,” said Johnson, who was 13 for 19. . . . Laker Coach Pat Riley said that the Spurs belong in the playoffs. “They belong here because they got here,” he said. “They’re one of the 16 best teams in the league, record-wise. When the league decided to add four teams to the playoffs, this is what you get. Maybe it’s not that bad. The Chicago Bulls made it, and they lost 52 games.”