Miller Trades Points for Point Protection as UCLA Beats Oregon

The Reggie Miller slump, albeit a flu-ridden one, continued Thursday night.

Or did it?

After scoring 6 points last week at Arizona State and 15 at Arizona, UCLA’s Miller returned to Pauley Pavilion and got 11 points in 27 minutes against Oregon. At first glance, it would seem that Miller’s health has returned but his shot hasn’t.

But this time, there was more to Reggie Miller than his shot, as was evidenced by the Bruins’ 64-59 Pacific 10 win before a crowd of 9,076.

His contribution should be measured in his defense after Coach Walt Hazzard switched assignments at halftime. The way Miller cooled down Oregon guard Anthony Taylor could be topped only by the job the Ducks did on themselves.

Taylor, who scored 16 points on 8-of-11 shooting in the first half against 6-1 1/2 Montel Hatcher and 6-4 Dave Immel, found no such success against the 6-7 Miller. Taylor made just 2 of 8 in the second half to finish with 24 points. The rest of the Oregon team could do no better.

So, who opened the doors and let the cold in? The Ducks shot an amazingly low 25% (6 of 24) in the second half, when they were outscored by the Bruins, 32-18. Oregon’s last field goal came on a 10-foot hook by 6-11 Sven Meyer with 6:32 to play.

“I think we should have done that from the start,” Miller said of the second-half defensive alignment. “I think the results speak for themselves.”

Hazzard said the turnabout couldn’t have come at a better time.

“We were lucky to get out of there with our lives,” Hazzard said after UCLA had won its seventh straight game to improve to 10-4 overall and 5-2 in the Pac-10. “That was not one of our better efforts. . . . We did not play well, and the team knows it. We’ll have to work on that tomorrow.”

Guard Pooh Richardson, coming off a 16-point effort Sunday at Tucson, scored a team-high 19 points against Oregon, sinking 8 of 9 shots. Hatcher added 15 points off the bench.

“If I show that I can score and the offense can score, the other guys will feel comfortable with what they can do,” said Richardson, who began the night averaging 10.5 points a game. “That keeps Reggie from having to score 38 points a game for us to win.”

Meyer, from West Germany, finished with 21 points for the Ducks (8-7, 2-4), but only six came in the second half.

Oregon had not won at UCLA since 1977, but for a while it looked as if the Ducks would put this game away before halftime.

They jumped out to a 12-4 lead less than 3 1/2 minutes into the game and increased the margin to 13 with 9:18 left before halftime on Taylor’s basket. UCLA made a run with a couple of long-range jumpers to draw within six, but then could manage only one more basket in the final 2:30 as Oregon took a 41-32 halftime lead.

Taylor, a 6-4 senior from Beaverton, Ore., had made 8 of 11 shots for 16 points by that time, one better than Meyer. The Ducks shot 57% (16 of 28) in the first half, compared to 48% (12 of 25) for UCLA.

Richardson led all Bruin scorers in the first half with nine points. Miller, after playing just 14 minutes, had seven, including a three-point jumper in the middle of a 10-3 run that made it 29-23 with 5:14 to play before halftime. Craig Jackson, the hero of the win over Arizona Sunday, had four of those points, while Hatcher followed Miller’s 23-foot jumper from the top of the free-throw line with a straightaway shot of his own.

Bruin Notes Reggie Miller began the night in fifth place on the all-time UCLA scoring list with 1,661 points, just 30 shy of moving past Gail Goodrich (1,690) for fourth. . . . Oregon State visits Pauley Pavilion to play UCLA at 3 p.m. Sunday. The game will be televised by Channel 2.