NBA PLAYOFFS: LAKERS vs. SUPERSONICS : TOO TIRED, TOO BAD : SuperSonics Say You Will Just Have to Excuse Them, They Weren’t Themselves

Dale Ellis has already been voted the most improved player in the National Basketball Assn., so he doesn’t have to give back his award. But if the Seattle guard has any more games like the one he played Saturday against the Lakers, maybe there should be a recount.

Like a lot of offense? Then you would have hated the Lakers’ 92-87 victory because there wasn’t any, especially by Ellis, the SuperSonics’ shoot-till-you-droop offensive star of the playoffs.

Those were some pretty ugly numbers put up by Ellis: 11 points, 3 in the second half, and 3-for-13 shooting. Nothing but 35 minutes of misery for Ellis, a soldier of misfortune who couldn’t shake Laker defender Michael Cooper long enough to make any impact at all.

Can it happen again?

“No,” Ellis said. “I’m just not going to let him take me out of the game again. But I don’t think I’m the main reason we lost. I’m gonna have bad games.”

Ellis wasn’t the only player who had one, of course. In fact, Ellis has already had one poor game under his belt in the playoffs, a 12-point stinker in Game 3 against the Houston Rockets. The next time, Ellis had 32 points, then 27, then 36, so it isn’t exactly like he makes a habit of doing nothing.

After the SuperSonics shot only 42% against the Lakers and dropped the opening game of the conference finals at the Forum, their accuracy improved. They made a bunch of excuses.

Too tired, too drained, they said. Too bad, the Lakers said. The SuperSonics did not beat Houston until early Friday morning, flew here in the late afternoon and played Saturday afternoon. In the meantime, the Lakers were resting for them since they beat the Golden State Warriors Tuesday night.

Seattle Coach Bernie Bickerstaff said his team just wasn’t ready to start on the Lakers so soon after finishing off Houston in double overtime.

“Our legs were a little shot,” Bickerstaff said. “We were emotionally and physically drained, coming back after the Houston game. There just wasn’t time, but we put up a great fight and almost beat the best team in the league. The Celtics have the rings, but obviously the Lakers are the best team because of (Boston’s) injuries and things.

“Dale just didn’t have the legs,” he said. “They (the Lakers) aren’t going to stop Dale. They won’t hurt our offense. We’ll still get our shots.”

But they are going to have to make more of them. And so are the Lakers. In the fourth quarter, the Lakers were 3 for 13, and Seattle was 3 for 18, with Xavier McDaniel making all 3 of them.

The Lakers’ 92 points were the fewest they scored all season, which meant that if Ellis had been able to get anywhere near his playoff scoring average of 28.9, the SuperSonics would have pulled out a victory.

“If we can hold them to that again, we’ll be all right,” Bickerstaff said.

And Ellis maintained that he is going to be all right again, too.

“I just couldn’t rise to the occasion,” he said. “But I think fatigue was more of a factor than their defense.

“Cooper does a good job of trailing me out on the picks,” Ellis said. “When I get the ball, he’s right there with me, like a shadow. When I get the ball, it’s got to be a perfect pass.”

Cooper thought he could see that Ellis wasn’t as lively as usual. “Dale is normally a little more intense, but he was leg weary, you could tell.”

Ellis doesn’t need much time to get his shot off. Coach Pat Riley calls him a “catch-and-shooter” coming off screens on the perimeter, but Cooper and sometimes Byron Scott rarely allowed Ellis to get his feet set in order to shoot.

The Laker defensive plan isn’t any big secret. Riley doesn’t want to allow any two of Seattle’s three scoring threats to get as many as 30 points. In Game 1, Tom Chambers had 28 and McDaniel had 21, but Ellis, whom Bickerstaff calls the Silent Assassin, remained mute.

“You know where their shots are going to come from,” Riley said. “The trick is not to let two of the three go wild. And if either team thinks it can rely on offense to win, they’ll get beat.”

Chambers said he was relieved that the game wasn’t more fast-paced. “Running up and down would have killed us today,” he said. “We just weren’t there.”

No one was missing more than Ellis, but McDaniel said Ellis will soon be found, even if he looked pretty lost in Game 1.

“I don’t expect to see that again,” McDaniel said. “I won’t be surprised to see him have 40 the next game. That guy can flat-out shoot.”

Maurice Lucas said the Lakers really don’t have an edge yet anyway. There are still lots of games left to be played in this series.

“This is a meat grinder,” he said. “This is a dogfight.”

Well, which is it?

“It’s a meat grinder to find out how the other dog puts up his dukes,” Lucas said.