Lakers Tune Out the Jazz : Pro basketball: Ceballos scores 36, Van Exel gets 23 in 113-90 rout of Utah at Forum.

Adam Keefe had the solution right in his hands, with enough time to save his Utah Jazz teammates from the pain that would follow, enough time to at least come up with something to throw a stick in the Laker spokes.

Keefe found a copy of the Laker game plan and their Jazz scouting report at the afternoon shoot-around, one apparently left behind by Del Harris. Keefe took a quick glance, long enough to help only a speed reader, and then walked over and gave it to Harris.

Then, a few hours later, the Lakers gave it to the Jazz. Ingrates.

Taking control from the start, the Lakers got 36 points and 11 rebounds from Cedric Ceballos and 23 points and eight assists from Nick Van Exel to dominate one of the best teams in the league, 113-90, before 17,505 at the Forum, the biggest loss of the season for the Jazz and tying the Lakers’ largest margin of victory.

“That was probably the best I’ve seen anybody play,” Utah Coach Jerry Sloan said. “We didn’t even belong on the same floor with them. . . . They were terrific. They did anything they wanted to.”

Which, for the Lakers, meant regaining some momentum after Wednesday’s loss at Dallas, just in time to begin a brutal stretch of schedule. The Lakers wanted to keep the offense in high gear, and they did. The Lakers wanted to play defense, and they did.

“That’s the best defensive game we’ve played in quite some time, I think,” Harris said after the Lakers won for the ninth time in 11 outings. “Hopefully, we can continue that.”

If these are the dog days of the season for the Lakers, that time between when playoff positioning has largely been decided and the end of the regular season, then it’s a Rottweiler. The meeting with the Jazz, which dropped 2 1/2 games behind idle San Antonio for the lead in the Midwest Division and home-court advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs, was only the beginning.

The final nine games are against seven teams--Utah and Portland are up twice--all either headed for the playoffs or very much in contention for the postseason. Those seven also had a combined .621 winning percentage heading into Friday’s schedule and include the four teams battling for the best record in the NBA.

So much for gliding into the playoffs.

“A lot of times at the tail end of the year, you get a couple of teams who have got their cruises lined up and are shining their golf clubs,” Harris said. “You can go out and be up six or eight points at halftime, and they’ll roll over. That’s not the case with our schedule.

“Every team we’re playing is fighting hard for (playoff) position, so they’ll go all-out to win. That will emphasize to our players the various things we need to work on.”

Friday, they worked on staying focused during a blowout.

Extending their home win streak to seven, the longest of the season, the Lakers needed only about 8 1/2 minutes to build an 11-point lead. They were up by 15 at the end of the first quarter, 31-16, and kept their foot on the pedal the rest of the half, building a 21-point cushion with 5:45 left before intermission.

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Laker Notes

Playoff strip tickets, at a limit of six per customer, will go on sale today at 10 a.m. at the Forum box office only. Individual-game tickets for all possible rounds will be available for purchase Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Forum and in person and by phone at TicketMaster outlets. Those sales will also be limited to six per person per game. For people buying at the Forum, priority numbers will be randomly distributed both days at 9 a.m., so the Lakers are urging people not to arrive much before then because there is no advantage to be gained by coming earlier. . . .

The Lakers will return to College of the Desert, their former training camp home, for a mini-camp between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs. They have already scheduled two-a-days Monday and Tuesday. . . .

The jury from the O.J. Simpson trial attended the game as guests of owner Jerry Buss. They sat in his box.