If there was any doubt that Friday's Jazz-Lakers exhibition game was going to be something less than classic, one had only to look at the list of those in attendance. The L.A. Times didn't bother to show, nor did the Orange County Register. This one was, after all, just for practice.
That was just the missing media. On the player side, Magic Johnson of the Lakers and Thurl Bailey of the Jazz were both out of commission.Predictably, it was a game long on problems and short on style. When the clock had finally run down - after an eight-minute delay in the fourth quarter - the Jazz had escaped with a 107-103 victory Friday night at the Delta Center.
Utah plays its final exhibition game tonight at Laramie, Wyo., while the Lakers move on to meet the Sonics in Vancouver.
By the time the final horn had sounded, the contest had deteriorated into a pickup game. In the last 3 1/2 minutes a fan suffered a seizure - causing an eight-minute delay - Laker guard Tony Smith had suffered a severe ankle sprain, and the Jazz rookies narrowly avoided losing a game in which they had once led by 15.
"These things scare me to death, those situations," said Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan.
Sloan said his concern was due to the fan who was taken out, but also over the resuming of a meaningless exhibition game after the players had cooled down. "There's more important things than basketball. I'm as competitive as anyone . . . but we had a sprained ankle after that."
The Jazz went into Friday's game minus Bailey, whose injured finger kept him on the sidelines wearing jogging warmups and a baseball cap. Not that there wasn't a fair exchange rate. The Lakers were playing without Magic Johnson, who flew home from Salt Lake with an unspecified illness.
That the Lakers were something less than awesome - even had Magic been in attendance - could hardly be a surprise. After jetting to Paris for a pair of games in the McDonald's Open, they returned to the States to play four games in five nights, the game with the Jazz being the fourth.
Whatever problems the Lakers were bound to have in the Delta Center didn't make their appearance any too soon. They landed their first seven shots in a row, three of them on shots by James Worthy.
The Lakers built a 13-point lead by the end of the quarter, thanks to 68 percent shooting.The quick L.A. start had Sloan furious at his team. "The way we came out of the blocks was about as weak as we can be," he said. "We won't win any games if we play like that."
He added, "Had Magic been there we could have been 40 points down at one time."
The Jazz got back into the game quickly, however, early in the second period, scoring six unanswered points and finally going ahead with 3:54 to go in the half. Center Mark Eaton sent the crowd into a giddy condition when he rebounded a missed free throw and tossed it back in while drawing a foul.
An Eaton slam underneath put the Jazz ahead 55-54, and the lead stood until the break.
By the late third quarter, the Jazz had pulled ahead by 15.
What appeared to be a safe lead, though, evaporated. Sloan sent his young players in to put a wrap on the night, only to see the Laker reserves score eight unanswered points. They had closed Utah's lead to 101-97 when the game was halted while a fan - who reportedly suffered a seizure - was attended to.
Once the teams were back on the court, the coaches watched in fear as officials cranked the game back up. Moments later Smith lay twisting underneath the basket, his ankle sprained. He was sent home to Los Angeles rather than going on to Vancouver with the team.
In moving to 4-3 in exhibition play, the Jazz have only one game remaining. But it was no solace to Sloan, who said he was "disappointed" in the play of his veterans - that despite 20 points by Blue Edwards and Jeff Malone.
"We've got one exhibition game left and now is when you turn it up," he said. But the way things finished up Friday night, they would have been better served to turn it off.