CBS Fine on Lakers but Throws It Away in Double Overtime

Just when it appeared that CBS had come up with a near-perfect telecast Thursday night, the network blew it.

The Lakers had finished eliminating the Dallas Mavericks. Director Sandy Grossman had supplied all the right pictures, announcer Dick Stockton had turned in another solid performance, and commentator Tom Heinsohn, who’ll never win any popularity contests in Los Angeles, had actually offered some good observations.

Then CBS switched to Pat O’Brien, reporting on the evening’s other NBA playoff game, Houston at Denver. With a minute to go in regulation, the score was tied, 106-106. And Houston’s Akeem Olajuwon had been ejected from the game for a double technical.

That was the last we heard about the game. CBS immediately went back to Dallas for interviews with Magic Johnson and Pat Riley, then signed off.

CBS teased the L.A. audience, then left it hanging.

As things turned out, we missed a thriller. Houston won in double overtime, 126-122. It might have been too much to ask, but it sure would have been nice for CBS to stick with the Rockets and Nuggets until its conclusion.

“We did all we could,” said Ted Shaker, CBS’s executive producer of NBA telecasts, who was working from a studio in New York Thursday night. “We would have loved to stay with the Houston-Denver game, but working within the confines of the network, we had to get off the air. Time is always the enemy.”

So L.A. viewers were left wondering what happened in Denver and wondering if the Lakers would be playing Houston on Saturday or if they’d have the weekend off.

Since Houston won Thursday night, the Rockets will play the Lakers at the Forum Saturday at 12:30 p.m., and Stockton, Heinsohn, Grossman, producer Mike Burks and Co., CBS’s No. 1 team, will be on hand.

At 10 a.m. Sunday, CBS will televise either Milwaukee vs. Philadelphia in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series or Milwaukee vs. Boston in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final. Either way, Brent Musburger and Billy Cunningham will be the announcers.

Ratings game: Last season, Game 1 of the NBA championship series between the Lakers and Boston Celtics, which was played on Memorial Day, drew a national Nielsen rating of 8.9.

This season, CBS is getting that kind of rating for conference semifinals. Atlanta’s 106-94 win over Boston last Sunday drew an 8.6, and the second half of a doubleheader, showing the Mavericks’ 120-118 win over the Lakers in most of the country and the Nuggets’ 114-111 overtime victory over the Rockets elsewhere, drew an 8.7.

Overall, CBS’s NBA playoff ratings are up 25% over last season at this point.

It was only a few years ago that things looked bleak for the NBA, with TV ratings hitting new lows. Now, when most other sports are experiencing a ratings decline, the NBA is healthier than ever.

Add ratings: ABC’s 1 1/2-hour Kentucky Derby telecast last Saturday drew a national rating of 13.6, up from 10.9 in 1985. The last half-hour of the coverage this year drew a 17.1, compared to last year’s 13.0.

Add Derby: Winner Ferdinand, who came from last to first, didn’t get a mention from Churchill Downs race caller Mike Battaglia until he was well in front. Battaglia, like most people, never saw him coming.

An isolated replay of Ferdinand by ABC vividly showed the nation Bill Shoemaker’s masterly ride.

Credit Curt Gowdy Jr., the producer of the ABC telecast, for selecting Ferdinand as one of three horses to isolate a replay camera on.

Snow Chief and Badger Land were two obvious choices. That left Gowdy with one horse to pick from the rest of the field. Why Ferdinand?

“It was a gut feeling,” he told Newsday’s Stan Isaacs. “First, there was the sentimental factor. I thought if Shoemaker at 54 and Charlie Whittingham at 73 won the Derby with this horse, it would be such a great story we would want to see how the horse did it.

“And I thought the horse had the breeding to go the distance. I knew that Whittingham always brings his horses around slowly, and he had said he wouldn’t enter the Derby unless he thought he had a horse that could win it.”

Notes Former Padre Kurt Bevacqua will be Marv Albert’s studio guest on NBC’s baseball pregame show Saturday at 10 a.m. Next week, the guest will be Jimmy Piersall, and the following week it will be Tug McGraw. “We’re looking for an Al McGuire of baseball,” said an NBC spokesman. . . . NBC’s Game of the Week in this part of the country Saturday will be San Diego at Chicago, with Bob Costas and Tony Kubek reporting. . . . Add Costas: During spring training, Costas mentioned to Minnesota’s Kirby Puckett that his wife, Randi, was expecting their first child in May. Puckett suggested they name the child Kirby. “The name works for either a boy or girl,” Puckett said. Said Costas: “Look, if you’re hitting .350 when the baby is born, we’ll name it Kirby.” It seemed like a safe promise at the time. However, as Costas said on the air during a regional baseball telecast last Saturday: “Unless the baby is extremely late or Puckett goes into a terrible slump, we’ve got Kirby Costas.” Puckett, hitting .397 on May 1, is currently hitting .374.

Jim Spence, former senior vice president of ABC sports, has been hired as president of ICM sports, a newly created division of International Creative Management, Inc., by Marvin Josephson, chairman of ICM’s parent Josephson International, Inc., of New York. Mike Pithey, former senior production manager for the Olympic Games for ABC, has been hired as Spence’s vice president. In his new position, Spence will have dealings with all three networks. Spence resigned from ABC when he was passed over and Dennis Swanson was named president of ABC sports. “I still have a good relationship with ABC,” Spence said. “And I have seen Dennis Swanson socially several times in the past few weeks.” . . . NBC has hired Mary Lou Retton as a commentator for its coverage of the U.S. Gymnastics Championships June 16-22 at Indianapolis. If she does well, she will be considered for a position on NBC’s announcing team for the 1988 Summer Olympics. . . . Retired Raider Lyle Alzado was in New York this week to audition for a position as football commentator with NBC. The audition reportedly went well.

ABC will televise the Dodger game at Montreal Sunday to much of the nation, so it will now start at noon, PDT, instead of 10:30 a.m. In Los Angeles, the ABC game will be the New York Yankees at Texas, and Channel 11 will televise the Dodgers. . . . NBC is televising two fights at Corpus Christi, Tex., on Sunday. The fights will be live everywhere but in Los Angeles and San Diego. L.A.’s Channel 4 will show them on a one-hour tape-delay, begining at 1 p.m., while San Diego’s Channel 39 will show only the second fight, and, because of a Padre telecast, not until 2:30 p.m. Originally, NBC had Meldrick Taylor and Harold Brazier in a lightweight 10-rounder on a separate boxing special, followed by Frankie Warren and Gene Hatcher in a 12-round junior welterweight bout that was to be the featured event on “SportsWorld.” But after Hatcher dropped out and Ronnie Shields of Port Arthur, Tex., was brought in as a replacement, the order of the fights was changed. . . . Add fights: Commentator Ferdie Pacheco, putting himself on the spot, will tell how he is scoring the fight after each round.

ABC will have delayed coverage of the semifinals of the Tournament of Champions tennis tournament at Forest Hills, N.Y., Saturday at 3 p.m., while Sunday’s final will be live at 10 a.m. The Financial News Network’s SCORE segment, continuing to offer more prestigious events, will televise the doubles semifinals Saturday and the doubles final Sunday, live both days at 3 p.m. . . . “Entertainment Tonight,” carried by Channel 4 weeknights at 7, will focus on sports next week, with Ahmad Rashad sitting in as host. The first segment Monday will focus on the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s victory over the Soviet Union in 1980. Other segments include Franco Harris’ immaculate reception against the Raiders in a 1972 NFL playoff game, Marty Liquori vs. Jim Ryun in the dream mile at the 1971 Penn Relays, and an interview with Hank Aaron. . . . Add Aaron: He will join Nick Charles and Jim Huber on CNN’s “Sports Sunday” program Sunday at 4 p.m. Next Sunday, the guest will be Mickey Mantle. The following Sunday, it will be Willie Mays.