In Singular Feat, Milwaukee Holds Abdul-Jabbar to 7

MILWAUKEE —  There were those who believed the sky would fall before the sky hook of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar would ever stop dropping.

The shot was as automatic--and as perfect--as a Malibu sunset.

“You knew ,” Magic Johnson said Friday night, “that Kareem was good for 10 points a game.”

For 10 years running, Abdul-Jabbar had always been good for that and so much more, night in and night out, whether for a meaningless March game in Cleveland or a battle royal in Boston.

But after 787 straight regular-season games in which he scored 18,037 points, Abdul-Jabbar on Friday night registered a single digit--a 7--in the scoring column of the Lakers’ 85-83 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, bringing to an end one of basketball’s most remarkable streaks.

Almost incidental was the fact that the Lakers have lost four of their last six games. Friday night, they somehow found a way to lose to a team forced by injuries to start the immortal Pace Mannion at small forward. The only streak Mannion has going is number of teams played for--the Bucks are his fourth in five seasons.

The Lakers trailed, 81-71, with 7:04 left but rallied to make it close. Mychal Thompson’s bid for a game-tying shot, a baseline jumper from about 10 feet away, bounced out.

“I’m very alarmed right now,” said Johnson, who found no consolation in a 22-point, 10-rebound, 12-assist night, his second triple double of the season.

“The Lakers I know used to take names and numbers. We made people be on the back of their heels. We came to attack.

“We’re not attacking now.”

The top gun, of course, has long been Abdul-Jabbar, although that changed last season, the first time since grammar school that he had failed to lead his team in scoring. This season, he is fifth. There already had been two nights of just 10 points, and it had taken an overtime to get that many against the Bucks in a loss at the Forum.

He had bounced back with games of 26 and 27 points against Sacramento and Denver. But the streak finally was stopped here by the Bucks, on the same Milwaukee Arena court where it had been spawned 10 years ago in a strobe flash of anger.

This is where, on Oct. 18, 1977, that Abdul-Jabbar reacted to an elbow in the stomach with a punch to the side of Buck center Kent Benson’s head, breaking his right hand. He scored two points that night before his TKO.

Friday night, playing against 7-footers of little distinction other than their height--Randy Breuer and Paul Mokeski--Abdul-Jabbar made just 3 of 10 shots. There was a sky hook in the game’s sixth minute, a sky hook in the second minute of the third quarter and a spinning layup with 4:38 left.

Other than a second-period free throw, there was nothing more.

“Ten years never being held under 10 points, 10 years of never being injured, that’s a helluva record,” said Breuer, who until this season had never averaged as many as 10 points a game as a backup Buck.

Breuer’s reaction to being a footnote to history?

“I can’t wait to get the Trivial Pursuit game and be asked that question,” he said.

Abdul-Jabbar’s reaction was perhaps that of a 40-year-old man who did not relish being reminded of his own mortality. He dressed quickly without showering and was out one dressing-room door while reporters were being led in through another.

“I wasn’t really aware of the streak coming to an end,” Abdul-Jabbar told a Buck assistant publicist as he went into the night. “It had to end sometime; that’s life. I just wish that we would have won the game.”

If Abdul-Jabbar was troubled Friday night, he shouldn’t have been, according to Kurt Rambis.

“He’s the greatest player who ever played the game,” Rambis said. “So what if he only scored seven?”

Laker Coach Pat Riley took a similar tack.

“I wouldn’t make a big deal of the streak ending,” said Riley, who once had vowed there was no way he would be coaching the night the streak stopped.

“I’m going to toast him for an incredible feat. How many of us score double figures in any game in life?”

Johnson, for one. And he said Abdul-Jabbar was taking this one hard.

“Kareem’s a proud man, we all know that,” Johnson said. “Kareem is a guy who goes on excellence; that’s what he plays for.”

But on this night, excellence was replaced by frustration. Abdul-Jabbar took just five shots in the fourth quarter, missing four. On one other occasion, he cut into the lane for a left-handed hook, only to have Mannion slap it off his knee and into Buck hands.

“Tonight he was off,” Johnson said. “He just didn’t get into any rhythm at all. Everything he got, he had to work for.”

Without a healthy James Worthy, who played 20 minutes after missing three games but still has a very sore left knee, the game is a much bigger chore for Abdul-Jabbar, Johnson said.

“The pressure was off him when me and James took the load,” Johnson said, “but the pressure’s back on him now. It’s hard for him to carry that load every night.

“James was giving us 20 points a night, and someone has to take up the slack. Without him, the whole thing has been thrown off, and we’re pressing right now.”

How bad is it? Well, the Lakers scored just 17 points in the first quarter, a season low. They were unable to run, at all, especially since Milwaukee was content to play the 24-second clock like a flat tire, letting the air out until the last possible second.

Byron Scott made just 2 of 11 shots, and Johnson and A.C. Green (14) were the only Lakers with more than 10 points.

Scott rebounded a missed shot by Jack Sikma, who had 21 points to Craig Hodges’ 22 for the Bucks, to give the Lakers a last shot with 11 seconds to go. But the Bucks double-teamed Johnson after he took the in-bounds pass, eliminating him as a final option.

“We made some big plays at the end,” Sikma said. “On the Lakers’ last attempt, we wanted to double the ball. We double-teamed Magic. When he gave the ball to Scott, we rotated and doubled on him. When he dished the ball to (Michael) Cooper, we did the same.

“When Thompson got the ball, Randy Breuer did a great job of going off Kareem and getting to Thompson.”

Cooper said he thought of letting go from three-point range before dumping the ball into Thompson.

“But I haven’t hit anything for the last five or six years,” said Cooper, exaggerating his 0-for-4 night from three-point range (2 for 11 in his last two games).

Riley said he was satisfied with the effort. “We just have to regroup and not worry about anybody but us,” he said.

Anxiety attack? Not just yet.

“I wouldn’t say we’re a sinking ship,” Rambis said. “Our motor just isn’t firing on all cylinders. Obviously, we’re not playing our best basketball.”

Friday night, that was only too true for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.