The Lakers Roll On

"Our players seem to be able to do whatever is necessary," says Los Angeles Laker Coach Bill Sharman. Those words may well qualify as the classic understatement of the 1971 sports season.

Not content merely to set a new National Basketball Association record with 21 consecutive wins (TIME, Dec. 27), the Lakers have since done dramatically more than is necessary. When the Philadelphia 76ers threatened them with a 132-point outburst, the Lakers countered with 154, setting a new N.B.A. high for the season. Then they outscored the Baltimore Bullets 34 to 18 in one quarter, to win their 27th game in a row, breaking a U.S. major-league sports mark set by baseball's New York Giants in 1916. Last week the Lakers won three more games, to run their unbeaten streak to 30.

What is the Lakers' secret? Guard Jerry West says that it is not the $5 bonus that Sharman doles out for each blocked shot or ball-stealing play. "I don't know what it is, really," confesses West, whose Laker salary is a reported $200,000 a year. "But whatever it is, we like it." Sharman knows exactly what it is, and he has printed the answer on the dressing room blackboard in large letters: RUN. The fast-breaking Lakers have read the word and reacted by outhustling all comers.

With half the season still to go, Sharman has no doubt that the going will get tougher. Noting that the 1916 Giants set their record while playing at home, he explains that "it's harder to sustain a winning streak in basketball. We have tougher travel conditions and have to fight the other teams' home court advantage, which doesn't mean as much in baseball." That argument does not impress Laker Center Wilt Chamberlain, who remembers his days with the Harlem Globetrotters' traveling basketball show. "I played with them when they won all their games," he says, "and they were all on the road."

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