Mikan and the Globetrotters’ Goose Tatum took their spots in the center circle, crouching for the tip-off. Fans got ready to laugh, knowing Tatum started games with gags like pulling down the opposing center’s pants.

Instead, the game started as any other — a sign the Globetrotters were serious about this game and opponent.

The Lakers took a 13-4 lead, but the game was tied at 15 by the end of the first quarter.

The Trotters did slip into a comedy routine, what Tatum called a “reem,” with the referees ignoring his blatant traveling at one point. Laughter filled the stadium as Tatum, the ball safe in hands described as big as toilet seats, teased the Lakers, showing them the ball and pulling it back when they get too close.

Until, Christgau recalled, Tatum suddenly fired a pass past Mikan’s head to a cutting Robinson for an easy layup. The Lakers got the message and later, when Haynes put on a dribbling exhibition, they simply stood and watched along with everyone else. At halftime, the Lakers led 32-23.

The pace quickened in the second half as the Globetrotters pushed the ball to wear out the Lakers.

The Globetrotters cut the lead to six, then two, and then tied the game at 38. Then it was back and forth, the Globetrotters up by two, the Lakers by 3, tied again, Globetrotters by one.

Late in the increasingly physical game, the largest player on the court and the smallest slammed into each other. Mikan crumpled to the ground. Haynes slammed to the court hard enough that he later learned he had broken a vertebrae. Robinson angrily pointed a finger at Mikan.

If there was to be violence, this was the time.

Instead, Haynes rose and the fans started to clap.

“And the cheering, which continues to rise, is in celebration now of the fact that the game will continue as high drama, not as low street fight,” Christgau wrote.

Mikan hit a foul shot with 90 seconds to play to tie the game at 59. After a timeout, the Globetrotters inbounded the ball. Haynes dribbled, waiting for a last-second shot that would either win the game or send it to overtime.

With 2 seconds to go, Haynes found Robinson near half court and whipped him a bounce pass. By the time Robinson shot from 30 feet out, the Lakers will say, the game was over. But the referee ruled the ball was in the air when the horn sounded.

“The ball didn’t even touch the rim,” Gerald Saperstein said.

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