Lakers Clean Up on Celtics Again: Fans Order Broom
So, this is what it sounds like when Local 236, Custodians Union of Southern California, gathers for its monthly meetings.
"Sweep, sweep, sweep."
That was the chant heard Thursday night at the Forum, where the Lakers once again vacuumed the floor clean of Boston Celtics, 141-122, in what might have been the last National Basketball Assn. game played in Los Angeles this spring.
Ask Coach Pat Riley what he thinks of the chances of a sweep, now that the Lakers hold a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven championship finals, and he'll advise you to bite your tongue.
Riley, remember, is the same guy who wanted to smack some smiling faces in the Forum Club after the Lakers breezed past the Celtics in Game 1.
"The playoffs really don't start until the home team loses a game or there's a seventh game," Riley said, recalling the sage counsel of a sportswriter, of all people.
"We still have three games to play in Boston."
Three games, maybe. Two, if the Lakers pirouette on parquet the way they did here Thursday night, when Michael Cooper incinerated Boston with a record six three-point baskets, four in a 75-point first-half explosion.
Concerned about a sweep, K.C. Jones?
"No concern whatsoever," the Boston coach said. "Why should I be concerned about that?"
A reporter ran down his short list of reasons why Jones, an amateur cafe singer, has reason to be crooning, "Melancholy Baby":
--Two straight blowouts here.
--Few indications that it will be otherwise in Boston Garden, other than the lame hope that Cooper (21 points), Magic Johnson (22 points, 20 assists) Byron Scott (24 points on 9-of-11 shooting), James Worthy (23 points) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (23 points) will put their heads together a la Detroit's Adrian Dantley and Vinnie Johnson.
Jones laughed.
"It never crossed my mind until you brought it up," he said.
Other Boston brains, however, are receiving SOS signals, loud and clear.
Larry Bird, for example. The only other time he's been down, 2-0, in a playoff series was in 1983, when the Celtics lost two to the Milwaukee Bucks.
"We got swept," he said. "It wasn't good then, either."
What may trouble the Celtics most is the knowledge that they played much better than they did Tuesday night--and still had their heads handed to them.
In the first quarter, for example, they scored 34 points. Robert Parish had a dozen of those points and seven rebounds, and the team shot 63.6%.
