Lakers Take 3-2 Series Lead over Bullets

Apr. 11, 1965 - A belittled bunch of rejects came off the bench tonight and sent the Lakers into a 3-2 lead in their fiercely fought playoff series with the Baltimore Bullets.

Jim King, Darrall Imhoff, and Don Nelson, substitutes all, blew open another thriller in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter to enable the Lakers to grab a 120-112 victory.

These three decided it was time to start flying down the court, and when they did — to the delight of the 15,013 L.A. Sports Arena partisans — the Bullets couldn’t keep up.

Of course, Jerry West was brilliant too, and the other starters performed well. And how about Dick Barnett, who was obviously hobbled by his pulled groin muscle but nevertheless put the clamps on Don Ohl?“I’m proud of everyone,” beamed coach Fred Schaus, “but the way those three came off the bench and broke things open was the key. Furthermore, it enabled me to keep Jerry on the bench longer in the last period.”

West had his smallest output of the playoffs, but he “only” played 40 minutes and contributed 43 points after failing to score for 7½ minutes.

Mr. Clutch, clicking on 50% of his shots for the first time in this series, now has 236 points in five games and has contributed 33 assists to completely dominate the offense. 

After the three subs went wild, the Bullets — especially Ohl and Walt Bellamy — kept firing away but never got close enough to do any real damage.

Bellamy wound up with 29 points, Ohl 28. However, for more than half the game, Ohl was held to nine by Barnett.

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