Cavaliers Too Much for Lakers

RICHFIELD, Ohio â€”  Everybody knows the trouble Danny Ferry has seen.

Reluctant Clipper, Cavalier bust, he is now auditioning for a role as a mere basketball player, which is what he looked like Saturday night, scoring 13 points off the bench as the Cavaliers brushed aside the Lakers, 106-91, for their 10th victory in 11 games.

Brad Daugherty played only 31 minutes. Mark Price made a cameo appearance--27 minutes, 11 points and nine assists.

“I think it says something that they beat us with Price and Daugherty on the bench for a lot of the second half,� Laker Coach Randy Pfund said.

“It means we were a long ways from winning this game. We’re not playing the kind of basketball that we need to play to come in and beat a good team like this.�

It also means the Lakers have lost six of eight games.

The Cavaliers started the game without John (Hot Rod) Williams, their backup center and power forward, which meant Ferry was the No. 3 forward. . . and the Lakers were going inside.

The game was interesting for one quarter, during which the Lakers shot 61%, scored 34 points--and trailed, 35-34.

It was close for two more, after which the home team took control. Cleveland led, 76-69, after three quarters, but scored on its first eight possessions of the fourth and turned the game into a walkover.

Ferry and Terrell Brandon led a charge off the Cavalier bench that outscored the Laker reserves, 37-24.

“I think he’s a much maligned player,� Pfund said of Ferry. “If he’s terrible--he wouldn’t be terrible on our team.�

Ferry isn’t terrible, but he is unfortunate. In Cleveland, they still date time from The Trade--Nov. 16, 1989--that brought Ferry to Milwaukee from the Clippers for only Ron Harper and two No. 1 picks.

The Cavaliers then signed Ferry to a $34-million, 10-year contract, obliging them to rework the contracts of Price and Daugherty. General Manager Wayne Embry has never been allowed to forget it, either. One Cleveland columnist refers to the Cavaliers as “Wayne’s World.�

Ferry struggled as a rookie, bulked up for his second season, played poorly and slimmed down for this one. If something less than a star, he now resembles a player.

“I believe in myself,� he said. “I feel I’ve improved. If I keep playing well, opportunities will come. This is an opportunity, with Hot Rod out.

“It’s been real up and down. I haven’t been as consistent as I want, but I haven’t had the opportunities I want. Sometimes I felt great. Sometimes, I felt like I was in the dumper.�

Ferry is booed whenever he walks onto a floor in Los Angeles--even at the Forum for exhibition games--but he is earnest and hard-working. To know him is to feel for him.

“We all did,� Coach Lenny Wilkens said. “We tried to be supportive, to keep encouraging him. We told him, ‘You’ve got to be the type of player you can be, not someone else.’ You can’t worry about people judging you without knowing the situation.�

The situation is that only the first five years of Ferry’s contract are guaranteed, so he has to keep improving.

As do the Lakers. They had been on the road for six days, in which they had only played two games, but starting Saturday, they will be busy. This was the first of four games in five nights.

Saturday, they looked weak, tired, energy-less, dispirited, drained or just not good enough.

“We’ve got 10 good basketball players on this team,� Pfund said. “I’m not going to spend the year saying we don’t have enough energy to play. We got beat.�