Lakers Hold Off Seattle : Worthy Scores Career-High 39

SEATTLE —  The last time Tom Chambers spoke his mind, it cost him $1,000.

This time, his hope was spent.

“I don’t know if we’re ready to beat the Lakers in the playoffs,” said Chambers, the captain of the Seattle SuperSonics, after the Lakers’ 122-121 win Saturday afternoon put them within a game of closing out the National Basketball Assn.’s Western Conference finals.

Why has the series taken a 3-0 Laker tilt? After two losses in L.A., Chambers had suggested biased officiating, for which he was fined by the league.

On Saturday in the Seattle Center Coliseum, Chambers pointed his finger in a different direction.

Step forward, James Worthy.

“I think he’s as good a forward as there is in the league right now,” Chambers said of Worthy, who scored a career-high 39 points and was as active at the end of the game--when he slipped free for two critical jams and a layup--as he was in the first quarter, when he scored 11 points.

“He’s gone to a higher level than I thought he would go,” said Chambers, whose own game sank to such depths Saturday that he heard boos from the home crowd of 14,657 at the Seattle Center Coliseum after missing two free throws.

“He was always a great player, but now he’s getting to an upper echelon. It doesn’t seem to make any difference who’s guarding him.”

If you can’t guard him, then you can only try to outscore him. That tack was finally taken by Xavier McDaniel, who scored 42 points, 20 in the fourth quarter, to draw the SuperSonics within three after they’d fallen behind by 11, 99-88, with 10:12 to play.

The X-factor alone, however, wasn’t enough for Seattle.

“X and James X’d each other out,” said Laker guard Michael Cooper. “That’s a little joke.”

Cooper earned the right to laugh, when the Laker guard somehow sprung out from behind a Maurice Lucas’ pick to block Dale Ellis’ jumper with 32 seconds left and the Lakers ahead, 118-115.

The ball wound up in the hands of Magic Johnson, who was fouled by McDaniel and made both free throws.

Cooper made another pair with 18 seconds left, and even though A.C. Green missed two more with seven seconds to go, the Lakers were able to withstand McDaniel’s three-pointer at the buzzer.

Cooper said Ellis, who had time to shoot.

“A good pick was set on me by Chambers, a holding pick,” Cooper said. “And after he went around it, maybe he thought I’d given up, that I wasn’t going to get there.

“And then, with Luke in front of him, he had a nice pick to shoot behind.”

Instead of getting net, however, Ellis got Cooper’s left hand.

“I didn’t think I could block it,” Cooper said, “but when he didn’t shoot it right away, I thought I could make him change it.”

By now, Ellis could use a change of identity. He came into the series as the hottest scorer in the playoffs, averaging better than 28 points a game. Against the Lakers, that line reads 11, 22, and 19.

He made just 8 of 18 shots on Saturday, none from three-point territory.

“I’m getting good shots,” he said. “I’m just knocking them down.”

He hadn’t planned on taking the three-pointer that Cooper blocked, however. The play was designed for him to curl away from center Lucas and flash across the lane, with Cooper trailing too far behind to prevent the layup.

“But the pass wasn’t there,” Ellis said. “Nate (McMillan) didn’t make the pass.

“Then the play broke down. We just played street ball then, and took what we could get. I think Cooper fouled me, but they got the ball, so it was a good defensive play.”

Both Cooper and Magic Johnson played with five fouls apiece in the last quarter, Cooper for the last 9:14, Johnson the last 7:35.

But when Magic and Byron Scott were forced to the bench with foul trouble in the second quarter, Wes Matthews--who had played a total of four minutes in the Lakers’ last four playoff games--came off the bench to hit his first shot. He did the same thing when he entered the game in the third quarter, too.

Magic’s absence also meant more visibility for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored 28 points, his playoff high, grabbed 10 rebounds, and survived an elbow in the head from McDaniel early in the third quarter.

“Are you all right?” trainer Gary Vitti asked Abdul-Jabbar, who was clutching his head with both hands.

“Yes,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

“Do you know where you are?” Vitti asked.

Abdul-Jabbar stormed away, muttering at the startled Vitti. But he remained in the game, by which time he had no doubt where he was--one game away from returning to the NBA finals.

“We’re playing good basketball,” Chambers said, “but against the Lakers, you have to rise to another level.”

There’s a name for that level: Top shelf.

“Do unto Kareem what we did to Akeem,” read one sign in the stands, referring to Seattle’s upset of Houston and Akeem Olajuwon in the second round.

But Worthy and the Lakers are about to put Seattle out of the upset business.

Laker Notes Seattle took 26 more shots than the Lakers, the result of a commanding difference in offensive rebounding. The SuperSonics had 21 offensive rebounds to the Lakers’ 5, and had an overall edge of 47-38 on the boards. But the Lakers shot 56.8% (42 for 74)--63.9% in the first half--while Seattle shot 51 % (51 for 100). The Lakers made 37 of 43 free throws, while Seattle made just 18 of 31. . . . Seattle guard Nate McMillan, a rookie out of North Carolina State, had 15 assists. . . . Kurt Rambis, who played 10 minutes in Game 1 and five minutes in Game 2, did not play at all Saturday. . . . The win was Pat Riley’s 67th in playoff competition. Only Boston’s Red Auerbach (98) has more. . . . Riley on James Worthy: “He’s proven to be unstoppable so far. I don’t know where we’d be without him. I can’t keep him on the floor enough.” . . . Cooper on Worthy: “Teams don’t know how to guard him. If they put a big man on him, James goes right by him. If they try a little guy, James overpowers him. Trying to match up against James gives us an edge on any team we play.”