For Lakers and Ducks, Winless in Their Second-Round Playoff Series, There Is Only One Thing to Say: UH-O!

By SCOTT HOWARD-COOPER

May 8, 1997 12 AM PT

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

As Nick Van Exel continued his love-fest with NBA referees, the Lakers returned to practice Wednesday, trying to forget the events of the night before. Or remember.

The wounds remained, even if some players, going for the positive spin, said the anger and frustration at the controversial no-call on Van Exel’s attempted three-pointer at the buzzer had become their motivation and strength. Beyond that, it was a normal practice at the Forum.

Sure.

“A normal practice after you had lost a significant game,” Coach Del Harris said.

Significant may not begin to cover it. The Lakers, in truth, may very well have had their season turn for good with the 103-101 heartbreaker, an outcome that became an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals. It means they must now win four of five from the Utah Jazz, the same Utah team that is 5-1 in head-to-head meetings this season and has won 24 of its last 25 overall.

If Wednesday’s workout was the Lakers’ picking themselves off the ground, Game 3 tonight at the Forum is for the start of what they hope is the climb back. Sisyphus has an easier time going uphill. On the other hand, he didn’t have the image of Jack Nies for motivation.

It was Nies, a veteran official, who drew the brunt of the Lakers’ anger immediately after the defeat at the Delta Center for not calling a foul on Karl Malone that would have sent Van Exel to the line for three free throws with a fraction of a second, if that, remaining in the two-point game. Television replays showed that Malone’s swipe at the ball caught Van Exel on his left (shooting) forearm.

A team-wide no comment followed, and Van Exel still wasn’t talking Wednesday, having bolted after practice. No Laker would address the play in question, but he was the one who couldn’t disappear from the issue that emerged again:

Did previous run-ins with officials--a fine and suspension last season for shoving Ron Garretson, a fine and near suspension this season for jokingly intimating the three-man crew in the March 21 game at Miami was on the take--come back to haunt the Lakers’ point guard?

“If people have certain problems with certain people, they can’t do their job effectively,” said Shaquille O’Neal, suggesting as much.

“If I’m a cop and I don’t like white people and I arrest a white person, I’m going to be a little rougher on that person. I don’t think I can do my job effectively.”

Someone asked O’Neal if that’s what has happened in this case.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I do know that if you have a grudge against somebody, that means you cannot do your job effectively.”

As if that isn’t enough of a concern for the Lakers, there is the matter of how the entire team responds tonight. It was Van Exel’s shot, but it was O’Neal and Jerome Kersey who also had their say at Nies, Hue Hollins and Jim Clark before leaving the court, and it was Harris who looked their way and gave the choke sign.

And, it was any one of the five Lakers who could have used the foul to give instead of letting John Stockton down the lane with about five seconds left in a 101-101 game. But Stockton drove and dished to Antoine Carr, who was fouled on a layup attempt, went to the line after a timeout to ice him, and made both attempts with 2.1 seconds remaining.

The Lakers would love to forget the whole final 15 seconds. If they weren’t so intent in remembering.

Shattered?

They talk as though they’ve never been more solid.

“No,” Harris said without hesitation if Tuesday’s outcome might have broken the Lakers. “I think it’ll make us tougher.

“This team is very much together, I think. We all hurt together. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a team stick together like that in a postgame approach. I think that was a good sign of our solidarity.”

Added Byron Scott: “We know that we won that game.”

In their minds, at least. On the scoreboard, it’s Jazz, 2-0, with the time for talking about what should have been at an end.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

TONIGHT’S GAME

LAKERS vs. JAZZ

Jazz leads series, 2-0

* Time: 7:30

* TV: Fox Sp. West

* Radio: KLAC (570)

* RANDY HARVEY

If the Lakers studied their history (see Magic Johnson), they shouldn’t have been surprised that calls didn’t go their way. C2

* New York 88, Miami 79