THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : LAKERS WIN SECOND CONSECUTIVE TITLE : Other Views : Lakers Didn’t Score High Nationally on Style Points

For two weeks, the Pistons hung over Los Angeles like smog. They just wouldn’t go away, like “celebrities� Bert Convy or Charo. The Pistons kept popping up in Hollywood like another “Friday the Thirteenth� sequel. Rambo lives! Rocky survives.

You kept wondering how in the name of Donald Carter--the Mavericks’ owner--the Pistons didn’t get Showtime--smoked the way Dallas did in its Game 7 of the Western final. I’ll tell you why; the Lakers were playing on fumes.