Lakers Step Out in Dallas : Mavericks’ 11-Game Winning Streak Goes by the Boards, 108-97

DALLAS —  It caught Byron Scott’s attention, the magazine cover story that proclaimed that the Dallas backcourt of Derek Harper and Rolando Blackman the best in the league, but did the Laker guard find it interesting reading for a Sunday morning?

“Not really,” he said. “I stomped on it.”

By the time the Lakers got through leaving their sneaker prints on the Mavericks, 108-97, Sunday afternoon in Reunion Arena, about the only thing that hadn’t been crushed underfoot was the 20-gallon white Stetson worn by the Mavericks’ pint-sized owner, Donald Carter. And he probably was ready to jump on the hat with both cowboy boots himself after the Lakers had bolted to a 60-42 lead at the half.

“What Dallas has done in the last couple weeks, running roughshod on people, got our attention,” Laker Coach Pat Riley said.

But what started out as high noon for the Mavericks--who came into the game with a club-record 11-game winning streak, an overall record second only to the Lakers and headline-making testimony from Riley that they were the best team in the league (“I was misquoted,” the Laker coach coyly said afterward)--rapidly deteriorated into low comedy for the home team.

“We didn’t get untracked because L.A. was just dominant in every phase,” Dallas Coach John MacLeod said. “They switched out on us and denied our passes. We’re the No. 1 rebounding team in the league, but they were doggone determined to show us.”

The Laker show climbed to new heights Sunday when Riley--who left injured guard Michael Cooper back home--tried a five-man unit composed of one 7-footer (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), one 6-10 forward (Mychal Thompson) and three 6-9 players (Magic Johnson, A.C. Green and James Worthy). The Lakers had a 29-17 rebounding edge at the half, 52-40 at the end of the game.

Abdul-Jabbar--a one-basket contributor last Tuesday in a loss to Seattle--scored 20 points, had 7 rebounds and threw a behind-the-back bounce pass on the break to Scott, who scored a game-high 28 points.

Had Abdul-Jabbar merely been bored lately?

“I think he’s been fighting fatigue more than boredom,” Johnson said. “He’s only missed one game this year. Now he’s making a conscious effort to get his game together for the stretch run. He’s the last guy I need to worry about, because he’s proud. When it’s time to play, he’ll be there.”

Not to worry, of course, about Johnson, who had his eighth triple-double of the season--14 points, 16 assists and 10 rebounds. Thompson had 9 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocked shots, and Green grabbed a game-high dozen rebounds, even if he did miss almost as many layups.

But the best time of all may have been had by Worthy, who scored 23 points and got to play with Johnson in the backcourt, something Riley said he’d been promising Worthy for years. That created insurmountable matchup problems on both ends of the court for Dallas, especially when 6-6 Rolando Blackman was not in the game.

“I like it,” Thompson said of the oversized lineup. “It’s a deadly team. James is not just a big guard, he’s a huge guard. When he posted up, the opposing guard sounded like the guy in ‘The Fly’ (squeaky voice): ‘Help me, Help me.’

“Everybody would run over to help, and James would find the open man for an easy basket.”

After the high-fives and standing ovations of the pregame introductions, nothing came easy for the Mavericks. All-Star forward Mark Aguirre came out, speed-dribbled between his legs, and threw up an airball on his first jumper. That as much as anything set the tone for the Mavericks, whose last lead was 4-2. A team that lives and dies on its perimeter shooting, Dallas shot 29% in the second quarter, which ended with the Lakers blitzing the Mavericks on a 6-0 run in the last 56 seconds, the final basket coming when James Worthy stole Detlef Schrempf’s in-bounds pass and beat the buzzer with a layup. The Mavericks left the court to a rhapsody in boo.

That couldn’t have been what MacLeod had in mind when he called a 20-second timeout just before that sequence. And more than a few observers were wondering what MacLeod was thinking when he left Aguirre on the bench for more than five minutes in the middle of the fourth quarter, just when it seemed Dallas might make a game of it after all.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Worthy said. “I didn’t expect to see that, especially at a time when they needed him most.”

Riley sidestepped the question when asked how MacLeod could keep Aguirre--who wound up with 27 points after a 1-for-6 first half--out of the game.

“I was just glad to see him over there,” Riley said. “We did a good defensive job on him. We doubled him. We were trying to make him a passer immediately.”

MacLeod, when asked about Aguirre’s extended absence, responded by looking at the score sheet. “He played 35 minutes,” he said.

For his part, Aguirre--who frequently went to the mat with former Maverick coach Dick Motta--publicly took it in stride. But it was evident he was frustrated even at halftime. “I can’t get into the game,” he said to one observer as he walked back to the Dallas dressing room.

Afterward, he said: “They only let me post up maybe twice all day. Every time I got the ball, Byron was waiting. It was like Pat (Riley) was saying, ‘We’re not going to give up the low post.’

“They gave us everything from the outside. We got our shots, we just couldn’t make them. It was like we were too ‘up.’ ”

The Lakers brought them crashing down in a hurry. Best team in the league? Johnson smiled when reminded of what Riley’s pregame quotes.

“For me, we came and got the job done, let’s get back to work tomorrow,” he said. “You know how (Riley) is. He tried to get us fired up. That’s him, and it’s good for us. The way he is, he doesn’t let us slip.”

Dallas, meanwhile, has come up empty in three shots at the Lakers, with another meeting in Los Angeles on Saturday.

“It’s good to beat up on the rest of the league,” Dallas center James Donaldson said, “but you have to beat these guys to prove how good you really are.”

Laker Notes

Mark Aguirre wasn’t the only Dallas player who had a miserable first half. Derek Harper shot just 2 of 10 and finished with 15 points. The Mavericks’ highly touted sixth man, 7-footer Roy Tarpley, had just 7 points and 6 rebounds, more than 5 below his average. . . . The Lakers flew to Philadelphia Sunday night, and will play the 76ers there tonight. The Lakers are 47-10 overall and 20-7 on the road. They’ve won 11 of their last 13, 19 of their last 21, and 36 of 40.