Lakers

All season for the No. 1 Lake Clifton boys basketball team, it has never been a question of whether somebody could step up at an important moment. It's more like who will step up this time for the Lakers. Playing in front of a packed gym at No. 4 Walbrook yesterday, nearly everybody took a turn as the Lakers found positive answers at all the right times and coasted to an 88-61 win over the Warriors (18-3) to improve to 20-0 with two regular-season games remaining. Junior forward Will Barton led the way with 24 points, senior center Melvin Cleveland had 20, senior guard Jason Sharp provided 18 and junior guard Antonio Barton supplied 15 in a balanced performance.

IF YOU'RE looking for the soap opera in this year's NBA playoffs, remember: The head diva is absent. But not only might he be back soon, he also might be coming to one of the two stages big enough to handle the magnitude of his persona. It's not that the NBA playoffs are somehow coming up short without Phil Jackson's looming presence. These playoffs have been great so far, and even the routs in progress have their share of dramatic tension and outsized personalities. But no team has brought the spice to the meal that Jackson's teams have for the past decade.

GuardsEveryone talks of the dream matchup between Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, the game's two premier guards, but it is doubtful they will go one-on-one. Johnson can post up anybody. Jordan relies on slashing and incredible leaping ability. John Paxson and Byron Scott are basically jump shooters, with Scott having more speed.Edge: Los Angeles.ForwardsSam Perkins, who can score inside or outside, was in top form for the Lakers in Western finals. Horace Grant benefits most from the double-teaming of Jordan by breaking free on the baseline.

LANDOVER -- Help finally arrived for the struggling Washington Bullets last night.There was Rex Chapman, two games into his comeback from a dislocated ankle, scoring 22 points, including eight in the fourth quarter when the Bullets needed it most.There was Kenny Walker, playing with a plastic shield to protect his injured cheekbone, giving the Bullets 17 valuable minutes inside.And there was Michael Adams, who rediscovered his long-range shooting touch to score a season-high 29 points.On a night when the Bullets showed what might have been this season, they outlasted the Los Angeles Lakers, 124-118, before a sellout crowd of 18,756 at USAir Arena.

CHICAGO -- The only disappointment of the day was that Scottie Pippen missed a halfcourt shot as time ran out. That would have been a perfect ending to a perfectly contested game. Forget loyalties. Forget sides. Forget that the vast majority of Chicago prognosticators made complete idiots of themselves yesterday. Game 1 of the 1991 NBA Finals was exactly what it was supposed to be. Great basketball. Classic basketball. Perfect entertainment."This," Magic Johnson said, "is the way basketball is supposed to be played."

The Washington Bullets, who have the sixth pick in the 1992 NBA draft, have been approached about that selection by teams that include the Los Angeles Lakers, who may have offered veteran small forward James Worthy, an All-Star the past seven seasons.Team president Susan O'Malley confirmed the Lakers proposal yesterday on WTEM, Washington's new all-sports station."Obviously nothing has happened or we would have called a press conference," O'Malley said.But Lakers general manager Jerry West strongly denied that his team has offered Worthy in any prospective deal with the Bullets.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- Chicago Bulls win. I think. At least I' pretty sure that was Michael Jordan dancing off the court with his first NBA title, and Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant and John Paxson hugging in a tight circle on the Forum floor. It sure looked like them, anyhow. As for the final game of this championship series, I would like to tell you what happened, but I must confess an embarrassing mistake: I obviously drove to the wrong arena. That couldn't have been Bulls-Lakers. It looked more like Kings-Clippers.

Point guard Sherman Douglas has signed an offer sheet with the Los Angeles Lakers, the team said yesterday. Terms were not announced.Douglas, a restricted free agent, hasn't played this season because of a contract dispute with the Miami Heat.Lakers coach Mike Dunleavy, interviewed by a Miami radio station, would neither confirm nor deny a report that the Lakers had offered a seven-year deal worth $17 million.However, Douglas and the Heat were discussing a salary in that annual range -- $2.4 million -- when negotiations broke down last summer.

The Chicago Bulls' 108-101 win over the Los Angeles Lakers to clinch the NBA title was a breakaway smash for NBC.The game scored a 19.7 rating/36 percent audience share from 9 to 11:45 p.m., making it the second-highest-rated NBA game of all time.

LOS ANGELES -- On the day after his latest, greatest offensive show, Michael Jordan spent a good deal of his time on the defensive.Less than 24 hours earlier, he had led the Chicago Bulls to a 107-86 thrashing of the Los Angeles Lakers at the Chicago Stadium, evening the NBA Finals at one game apiece. Now, it was Thursday afternoon, and Jordan sat in a folding chair at the Forum, defending himself against a charge by Byron Scott that he had taunted the Lakers once Chicago's victory became inevitable.