Lakers Can Bury Spurs--for Good--Wednesday

Magic Johnson sounded perfectly serious. He did not crack a smile, wink or otherwise hint he was really kidding when he said that the Lakers will be jumping into some deep trouble Wednesday night in San Antonio.

“The home court gives the Spurs a definite advantage,” Johnson said. “We’ll have to play an excellent game to beat them. They’re up 10 or 20 points already.”

Let’s see now. At worst, that would leave the Spurs 27 points short of reaching the Lakers, if you go by the 47-point margin in Game 1. At best they would be eight points shy, if you use Game 2’s 28-point differential.

Either way it’s a mismatch, and it could hardly be any worse than what the Lakers have already done to the Spurs. The Lakers lead this best-of-five series, 2-0, and can wrap it up Wednesday night in HemisFair Arena, which may not be much of an advantage to the Spurs anymore, no matter what Johnson said.

By the end of business Tuesday, the Spurs had sold fewer than 5,000 tickets for Game 3. How many do they expect by game time?

“We expect not very many,” Spur publicist Wayne Witt said.

At the same time, we have grown to expect the Lakers to say only nice things about the Spurs, who are down, but not yet out. This is only a temporary situation, according to Mitch Kupchak, choosing to break the Laker code of silence.

“The end is near,” he said. “A last-place team against us, regardless of where the game is played, it’s over. All we have to do is play somewhere near our capabilities. If we have a lead in the third quarter, I’ve been around in these kind of situations to know they can pack it in.

“Before the series started, I was very cautious,” Kupchak said. “But now? Hey, I might be criticized for being too confident, but I don’t think it really matters at this point.”

What does matter to the Lakers is taking a little breather. If the Lakers wrap up the Spurs in three games and if Utah can beat Dallas Wednesday night, the Lakers’ next playoff series won’t begin until next week.

“There might be something to be said about that,” Coach Pat Riley said. “That could be an edge for us.”

In the Spurs’ better days, which these certainly are not, there actually was some sort of advantage for them in HemisFair. When each of the 15,800 seats in the place are filled, it can be a pretty difficult place for visitors.

David Meyers knows. Once when the former UCLA star was shooting a free throw for the Milwaukee Bucks, he was struck by a lighted cigar.

Former Houston Rocket Calvin Murphy also knows. Murphy was doused with beer poured by a fan in the stands, then challenged to a fight. When police reached Murphy, he was climbing a retaining wall and had to be pulled off.

The incident with Murphy was one of several instigated by a group of fans, called the Baseline Bums, who taunt opposing players from a position above the visiting team’s locker room. The Bums have a long and checkered past.

For instance, the first time Quintin Dailey played in San Antonio as a rookie with the Chicago Bulls, it was shortly after he had been involved in an assault case against a nurse while a college student. One Baseline Bum dressed as a nurse and another pretended to beat her up.

Neither have the Lakers been spared. Three seasons ago, the year Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lost his house and all his possessions, including his prized collection of jazz records in a fire, one fan held up a melted record. Abdul-Jabbar still remembers.

“It wasn’t funny then and it isn’t funny now,” he said. “At certain times, they can get very nasty.”

Riley believes that the Spurs’ fans will be no factor in Game 3. “They will only be a factor if they’re kicking our butts,” he said.

That is not expected to happen.

“I can’t say this about any other series, but let’s be realistic,” Kupchak said. “They’ve lost 23 of their last 28 games. It’s not academic, but we should win. If not, it would be a tremendous upset.”

Laker Notes The Spurs’ smallest home crowd of the season was 5,093 for a game against Cleveland, but the Lakers may have a shot at breaking the Spurs’ record for their worst home playoff crowd. It is 8,621, set last spring by Denver in Game 4 of the first round. . . . The Lakers are 8-0 in first-round play since the playoffs were expanded to 16 teams in 1984. They are also 5-0 in playoff games in San Antonio. . . . Laker reserves have outscored their Spur counterparts, 100-43.