NBA PLAYOFFS : Sonics Win in 2 Overtimes, Will Play Lakers Saturday

The Seattle SuperSonics, who finished the regular season with a losing record, finally finished off the Houston Rockets, 128-125, in two overtimes Thursday night to win their Western Conference semifinal series, 4-2.

Seattle, the surprise team of the NBA playoffs, will play the Lakers for the conference title in a best-of-seven series. Game 1 is 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Forum.

The SuperSonics got 37 points from Tom Chambers and 36 more from Dale Ellis to offset a brilliant 49-point, 23-rebound performance by Rocket center Akeem Olajuwon.

Ellis scored the winning basket on an offensive rebound with just under a minute to play. Ralph Sampson’s 15-foot jump shot was long with 15 seconds left.

Houston, last season’s conference champion, blew a five-point lead with 55 seconds left in regulation and allowed the SuperSonics to send the game into overtime. Guard Dirk Minnifield, who was playing only because Allen Leavell had fouled out, lost the ball on the dribble and Ellis’ three-point play tied the game at 107 with 25 seconds left.

Olajuwon missed a jumper with two seconds left and the SuperSonics could not get off a shot before the buzzer.

Houston blew another chance to put the game away with five seconds left in the first overtime when he missed his second free throw to leave the score tied at 115.

The Rockets couldn’t afford to get their guards in foul trouble because they have so few of them anyway, but Leavell picked up his fifth early in the third quarter with the score tied at 58.

So what happened? The Rockets moved to their biggest lead of the game, 66-59, with Steve Harris subbing for Leavell.

Three quick baskets inside by Olajuwon, a tip-in by Rodney McCray and six points by Sampson, who had been kind of quiet since an earlier run-in with Maurice Lucas, gave the Rockets an even bigger lead, 74-63.

But in the next two minutes, both Olajuwon and Sampson collected their fourth fouls and went to the bench. Rocket Coach Bill Fitch finished the quarter with rookie Dave Feitl at center and Cedric Maxwell at forward, and neither one could stop their matchups.

From then on against Maxwell, Chambers finished the quarter with 11 points and his baseline jumper at the buzzer brought Seattle to within 84-78.

Olajuwon had 15 points, 13 rebounds and four blocked shots in the first half, which ended with the Rockets leading, 58-54.

Only four teams in NBA playoff history have ever come back to win a series after being down 3-1, so the Rockets were bucking pretty long odds in Game 6.

Seattle, which got 17 points from Ellis in the first half, got off just as quickly as Ellis, who scored eight of the SuperSonics’ first 10 points.

But the Rockets caught up and took the lead, 27-25, on two free throws by Sampson with 2:09 left in the first quarter. Sampson was fouled on the play by Lucas and became angry, throwing a wild punch at Lucas.

Olajuwon stepped into the middle of it and both he and Lucas were given technical fouls. The SuperSonics used the incident to their advantage. They got mad and got ahead, closing out the quarter on an 11-1 run to lead, 36-28, going into the second period.

When Xavier McDaniel’s short jumper dropped, the SuperSonics led, 46-40, but then it was Houston’s turn to come back.