NBA PLAYOFFS : Lakers Go With O : He Helps Give Strength to L.A. Bench With 5 Blocked Shots and 14 Points

PHOENIX —  Rising on the charts as they go, the Lakers’ Studs played on before a packed house at Veterans Memorial Coliseum, with the heavy dose of that O-town sound.

That, of course, would be Orlando Woolridge, who, after a season of having his roster spot questioned, has become number zero with a bullet for the Lakers, who cut another hit Sunday afternoon by sweeping the Phoenix Suns to advance to the National Basketball Assn. finals for the third consecutive season. The Orlando influence was obvious.

He made six-of-10 shots and had 14 points, the latter his Laker playoff high. He blocked five shots. He had seven rebounds, tying his top mark of the postseason. He played 28 minutes, not far off his season best of 33, including, the most telling sign, the final 59 seconds as the Lakers were holding off the Suns, 122-117.

“Everybody knows about (Michael) Cooper coming off the bench,” said Woolridge, who wears uniform No. 0. “Everybody knows about Mychal Thompson. I don’t think they know too much about me. It was nice to be able to get some rebounds, block some shots. Do some dirty work.”

And as Woolridge becomes more prominent, so do Laker reserves, who Thompson has labeled the Studs, a spinoff of the Dodgers’ highly successful Stuntmen and, Thompson admits, simply because it sounds good. Only the three most prominent played Sunday--Woolridge, Cooper and Thompson--but the Suns get the idea. No encores, please. Cooper’s two three-point baskets and two blocked shots, Thompson’s nine points, after getting 13 and nine rebounds in Game 3 here Friday night, and Woolridge’s play was loud enough.

Magic Johnson heard it all. Asked after the game why the Lakers have been so dominant of late, his one-word answer left little doubt: “Bench!”

“All year long,” Cooper said, “Pat Riley and Jerry West have been saying how the bench should be performing. For some reason or another, we didn’t play well a lot of times during the regular season. But our true colors are coming out in the playoffs.”

Woolridge’s emergence during the playoffs has been in concert with the plans of Riley, the coach who said during the final week of the regular season that the Lakers would not win the NBA championship without a major contribution from the player known simply as “O.” As Bob McAdoo was in 1982 and Thompson was in ’87 and ‘88, Woolridge would have to be in ’89 if the Lakers were to become the first team since the Boston Celtics of the mid-60s to win three consecutive titles.

It struck a chord with Woolridge.

“It gave me a lot of incentive,” he said of Riley’s comments. “It put a little pressure on me, but I think I needed the pressure. Once I heard that, I said, ‘I have to go out and prepare myself to be the best player I can be.’

“I believed in myself from the beginning. I think the guys in this room believed in me. They’ve given me a lot of support. I just went out and did my thing.”

Did he ever. Woolridge, who averaged 9.3 points and 5.3 rebounds in only 18 minutes per game in the first three outings against the Suns, was most impressive with his blocked shots.

A year ago, Woolridge had just been released from a substance-abuse center in Van Nuys after being cut by the New Jersey Nets. His career seemingly was a wreck. Now he’s going to the NBA finals.

“It’s really been phenomenal,” he said of the last year, after signing with the Lakers as a free agent in August. “But we still have a job ahead.”

That being the next round. Woolridge played five seasons with the Chicago Bulls, averaging 20.7 points in two trips to the playoffs, but he said he doesn’t care whether the Lakers play the Bulls or the Detroit Pistons in the finals. Like the Lakers, Orlando will deal with whatever comes his way.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I just take life one day at a time. I just take the series one game at a time.”