Lakers Prevail but Feel Empty

The step forward, to 13-2, will be remembered as a step backward for the Lakers, hoisted by their own petard Sunday night and in no mood to celebrate once they wiggled free.

“We can’t feel good about this win,” Eddie Jones said. “I think we might have lost a little bit of our confidence.”

Which, in the long run, may mean the Lakers’ unimpressive 105-99 victory over the crippled Toronto Raptors before 14,940 at the Forum wasn’t a total waste.

“It could be that everybody’s reading the papers,” Nick Van Exel said after contributing 17 points and 10 assists. “Everybody’s riding high right now because we’re doing so good. Really, we haven’t done anything.”

And what they have done--the franchise-record 11-game winning streak to open the season--has been replaced by two underwhelming showings in a row. First was the loss Friday in Philadelphia, followed by Sunday’s home win over a 1-15 squad that came in on a 12-game losing streak and then turned a 15-point deficit early in the fourth quarter into a contest.

The Raptors, shooting 61.9% in that final period, got as close as 91-88 with 2:42 remaining, thanks to a 19-7 run. But the Lakers, having failed to show a killer instinct earlier, at least flashed something when it mattered most, using a 6-2 counterstrike to regain control for good with 1:06 left.

“I mean, that team is an NBA team, but they’re not a team we should have struggled with like we did,” Jones said after making 12 of 15 shots en route to a game-high 32 points.

Added Coach Del Harris: “It was a win, but that’s about all you can say.

“We’ve had slippage. Our execution at each end is not good. Part of that is verified by our 21 turnovers.”

Another is by letting this opponent in the game, a team limping even beyond the standings, with players mostly disappointed by the resignation of Isiah Thomas as general manager about 10 days earlier and the entire starting front line of Zan Tabak, Marcus Camby and Walt Williams out because of injuries. Another big man, Carlos Rogers, played with a strained back, and a fourth, Popeye Jones, left in the third quarter because of a strained knee.

That left only the two guards, Damon Stoudamire and Doug Christie, among the Raptors’ usual opening lineup. They were practically eliminated by Laker defenders in the first half, held scoreless as the hosts built a 54-41 cushion, though Stoudamire did have seven assists. Their counterparts, Jones and Van Exel, had 13 and 10 points, respectively, in the same time.

So the Lakers didn’t even get the best of one of the worst teams. Still, Harris had plenty of noisemakers to lob at his players during his pregame speech to ensure their complete attention in facing a last-place club, starting with the ringing in their own ears, the defeat at Philadelphia.

Beyond that, there was the fact that the Raptors had lost to the Atlanta Hawks by only five points, the San Antonio Spurs by two, the Miami Heat by four, the Portland Trail Blazers by one, and only two games earlier had taken the Heat to double-overtime before falling.

“It really calls on everyone to have a mature approach and a professional approach to the game to bring out the best effort for them in these types of games,” Harris said. “If they don’t, the NBA has a way of jumping up and punishing you.”

Like Sunday, for example.

In improving to 7-0 at the Forum, keeping the Lakers as the only team still undefeated at home, they had an 11-point lead near the end of the first quarter. They rarely relinquished the double-digit advantage, and were up by 15 once in the third period and several times in the fourth, the last time with 10:06 remaining. This came as Stoudamire’s quickness was being contained and Christie struggled with his shot.

Then, the punishment.

“The third quarter, we said to go out there and finish them out,” Jones said. “We let that team stick around and gave them confidence.”

Worse than that, they gave the Raptors a chance. Christie warmed up, scoring all nine of his points in the final 8:04 to finish three of 11 from the field, and the Lakers got beat on the boards during the fourth quarter despite Toronto’s obvious problems up front.

Thus the less-than-satisfied departure from the court for a first-place team suddenly down on itself and looking for a spark, with more bad news ahead--the 1-12 Denver Nuggets on Wednesday.