February 25, 1985

It was just about a year ago when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar convinced himself that his time had passed. He said it was time to leave quietly, so that his skills wouldn't fade before the critical eyes of the world. Yet, he was wrong about himself, and he hasn't stopped proving himself wrong. Yesterday afternoon, playing before 16,287 fans at the Garden and a national television audience, Abdul- Jabbar scored 29 of his 39 points in a furious second half in which he converted 11 of 15 field-goal attempts, and he added 10 rebounds over all to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a hard-fought 119-114 victory over the Knicks. Abdul-Jabbar's point total tied Bernard King for game-high honors, and it was a point shy of his season-high, which he tallied earlier this month against Houston and the famed Twin Towers - the rookie center Akeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, the player who has often been called his heir apparent. At 37 years old, he is the game's oldest player, but he is averaging more than 22 points and 8 rebounds in a season he said was going to be his last. Clearly, Abdul- Jabbar is not finished adding to his legacy.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1985 Companies The mortgage losses recently revealed by the Bank of America reflect a pattern of defaults that have stung other California institutions and cheated mortgage investors across the country, according to bankers, lawyers and law-enforcement officials. While there appears to be no mastermind responsible for the problem, some of the same people crop up as borrowers, lenders or middlemen in apparently disparate circumstances. (Page A1.)

By the time Doug Flutie settled down and began to work his magic for the Generals today, their game against the Birmingham Stallions had been lost. Flutie, in his first regular-season game as a pro football player, did not complete his first pass until the 13th minute of the third quarter, and by then the Stallions were far ahead, 31-7. Birmingham won the game, 38-28, but Flutie did enough in the final quarter to sustain the speculation and curiosity about his role with the Generals and in the United States Football League. Will he be a failure or a success, or something in between?

When American and Japanese negotiators sit down at the bargaining table Monday, the Americans will find themselves in an anomalous position - for a change, they will be the ones defending themselves against charges of closed markets. The market in question is the sky, and the charges the latest in a long and increasingly acrimonious series of negotiations on aviation rights. Since 1952, when Japan and the United States signed an aviation treaty in the last days of the American occupation, the Japanese have charged that the treaty was heavily weighted in favor of the United States. Negotiations to revise the treaty have gone on continuously for more than 30 years.

Traveling between his home in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and his classes at Boys and Girls High School never bothered Darryl Johnson. He said he always felt safe on the block he called ''my home'' and in the school he called ''my high.'' But that security dissipated on a stark afternoon last month. While he was walking home from school, Darryl said, a man with a gun approached him, accused him of teasing the man's younger brother and shot him in the arm. Now, between his geometry books and his loose-leaf notebook, the 10th grader carries a screwdriver or a razor blade.