Forward Becomes Laker Misdirection : Aftermath: Worthy’s recurring injury, Perkins’ poor shooting leave L.A. looking back at 3-1 deficit.

The Laker forwards took a step backward Sunday, one victimized again by a nagging sprain and the other by a new fracture.

Sam Perkins’ game simply broke. In the midst of a series in which he has made the winning shot in the opener and had 25 points and five blocked shots Friday, he missed his first seven shots of Game 4 at the Forum, made one, then missed seven.

James Worthy wishes he could have been around to see such a mess all the way through. But his left ankle has taken more twists than the Laker season. He plays and tries not to make his grimaces too obvious, but Sunday, after getting through four games with tape jobs, electrical stimulation and hot-and-cold treatments, he blinked.

Thirty-one minutes, six-of-16 shooting, three rebounds, 12 points and an early exit in an eventual 97-82 victory by the Chicago Bulls, leaving for good with 2:49 remaining in the third quarter and going to the locker room. There is no cause on the accident report, no incident that re-sprained the already frayed area. Simply wear and tear.

“When I came out, I knew I was not helping the team,” Worthy said. “Coming off picks, going to the boards, I knew I couldn’t contribute. There was no use in hurting the team when we’ve got a guy like A.C. (Green) who can give a maximum effort.”

The medical staff listed his status as day to day for Wednesday’s Game 5 at the Forum. The team captain was far less optimistic.

“James is definitely not going to play,” Magic Johnson said.

Worthy isn’t taking such a firm stand, at least publicly. Thanks to the scheduling, there is still time to rest. Take two days and call him at tip-off.

“It was a little bit more painful than other games,” he said of the ankle. “Throughout the game, I wasn’t able to turn quickly from the post. There were a couple of instances when I needed to stop on a dime. It was like I reinjured it again. There was already the major blow, and now I was having a lot of instances that were causing pain.

“It wasn’t really a twist. Tweaks. I don’t know if you can relate to that, but if I pulled up on a dime or went around a pick, those were certain movements I wasn’t allowed to make without pain.

“I’m a spontaneous kind of player--catch and go. When I have nagging injuries, I have to do a little more stopping, set the defense and then see what’s available. I still may put myself in position to score, but I don’t have the mobility to do what I want to do.”

Worthy, who originally suffered the sprain during the first quarter of Game 5 of the Western Conference finals at Portland, was getting good mileage until halftime, having played 22 of a possible 24 minutes, more than any Laker, and scoring 10 points. During the break, when no Bulls were around to collapse on him in the lane, that is when trouble came.

“I’ve had a tendency to be stiffer right at the beginning of the third quarter, even though I re-taped it and used the whirlpool during halftime and came back out. At the beginning of the third quarter, I tried to push myself through it and found I wasn’t as mobile even as I was in the first half.”

The Bulls had made defensive adjustments since Game 3 in hopes of stopping Worthy. The new plan was to double team him more quickly, waiting only until he got the ball instead of giving him the chance to back into the low post one on one.

Worthy still got his shots. But once he went out, Byron Scott followed with a shoulder injury after only four attempts and Perkins looked like something must have been wrong, even if nothing was. The Bulls looked like defensive geniuses.

“It was like a bunch of kids going to the candy store,” said Horace Grant, one of the Bulls’ starting forwards. “We wanted to grab the ball. We wanted to grab the candy. The candy was out there.”

Wrapped in purple and gold.

“Little simple layups,” Perkins said, lamenting his one-for-15 afternoon, though that did include 10 rebounds. “They just didn’t fall. They collapsed on me, which made it even harder. But the shots just didn’t fall.

“I don’t understand. It’s one of those things that happens. I’m not going to worry about it now.”

There’s plenty of time for that in the days ahead.