Lakers Are a Guard Short for Game 2 : NBA playoffs: Teagle is suspended for one game, fined $7,500 by the league for punching the Rockets’ Dave Jamerson in Game 1.

If Terry Teagle lost it Thursday, he will have until Tuesday to relocate it. The NBA fined him $7,500 for punching Houston’s Dave Jamerson and suspended him from today’s Game 2.

So the Lakers, 1-0 up on the Rockets but needing another victory to preserve their home-court advantage, will pursue it without their leading reserve scorer.

Look for . . . James Worthy at guard?

The starting guards to go 44 minutes?

“Forty-six?” said Magic Johnson, smiling. “Forty-eight?”

The normally low-key Teagle tangled with Jamerson, a rookie guard, soon after entering Thursday night’s game in the second quarter.

Jamerson defended against Teagle in the post at the Laker end, which entailed some shoving back and forth.

At the Rocket end, the two fought for a rebound. The TV replay showed Jamerson’s hand in Teagle’s face, then Teagle throwing two punches that grazed Jamerson around the neck.

“They didn’t really connect,” Jamerson said. “It was no big deal, so I leave it up to them.”

Teagle was ejected from the game, which the Lakers won, 94-92. Friday morning after practice, Teagle was told he would be fined and suspended.

“It was just a situation that happened,” Teagle said. “There was a lot of emotion out there. Just bad judgment on my part.

“I shouldn’t have thrown those punches. It cost me a game. That’s all I’ve got to say about it.

“It’s a tough situation. . . . The guys played so hard. I was sitting in the locker room watching the game, watching certain situations where my presence could have helped.”

The Lakers swallowed hard and accepted it.

“The way I have to look at it, suspension is in accordance with league policy,” Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “The league has said if you throw a punch at somebody’s head, they’re going to suspend you. Terry did that. I can’t go against that.

“Terry is not the type of guy to punch somebody abruptly. I think it was the heat of the game, a one-time thing.

“They’re certainly making an example of Terry, but as long as they’re consistent, I have no problem with it.”

Teagle drew a technical foul last week, jostling in the post with Utah’s Jeff Malone. Teagle started the season slowly, never really rolling until the last two weeks. One theory is he has become anxious trying to make up for lost time.

“I definitely think Terry has pressed all year long,” Dunleavy said. “He wanted to make a contribution. I think in the last two weeks, he hit his stride and got comfortable. He became the player we thought he was.

“Obviously, this is going to hurt us. In his last 11 games, he averaged 17 points a game.”

That’s 17 the Lakers will have to get elsewhere.

“We’ll just have to look to other people to do some other things,” Johnson said.

“I’ll talk with Terry. . . . He just (has) got to understand. The playoffs--things are going to happen, and we need him.”

The Lakers, bristling at suggestions that Byron Scott’s 19-foot field goal came after the 24-second clock had expired Thursday night, have another perspective.

The Laker videotape doesn’t have the shot clock superimposed, but the game clock.

The difference: The game clock goes down by 10ths of a second, the shot clock by whole seconds.

The play started with 28.8 seconds left.

The Laker coaches insist that their replay shows the ball out of Scott’s hand at 5.0 seconds, or 2/10ths of a second before the expiration of the shot clock.

NBC plans to run the Laker footage today in its pregame show. Announcer Dick Enberg told Rocket Coach Don Chaney Friday that this footage may suggest the shot was good.

Said Chaney: “I’m not buying that.”

It also could be noted that even had the shot not counted, the Lakers would still have led, 91-90, with the Rockets inbounding the ball and 3.5 seconds left.