The NBA : Pacers’ Miller Is a Born Shooter, but He’ll Need to Hone Other Skills

For the last three summers, Laker guard Michael Cooper has played pickup basketball at UCLA with Indiana Pacers rookie Reggie Miller, the former Bruin star.

“In a sense, it’s like looking in a mirror,” Cooper said. “Reggie is a much better perimeter shooter than I am, but he has some of the same skills. He’s got long arms like I do, and he has the potential to be a good defensive player.”

No one ever mentioned Miller’s name and defense in the same breath when he was at UCLA, but Cooper said he has talked with Miller about it.

“He knows he has to play a different game than he did in college,” Cooper said. “His assets as a scorer are what got him here, but he knows that there are other things that will have to carry him.

“I like him. I think he’s going to be OK. Like Coach (Pat) Riley said in the scouting report, he’s cocky. He’s got the size and height. You’ve got to have a little cockiness in you.

“It was fun playing against him. I think at first he thought it was going to be like UCLA. He was smiling and joking, but he could see right away I was serious, that I was out there to beat him.”

Add Miller: With his three-point basket against the Lakers on Saturday, Miller has 25 three-pointers in 30 games. At that pace, he’ll finish with 68, 10 more than Larry Bird’s league record of 58.

Mychal Thompson, who played with Artis Gilmore in San Antonio, on Boston’s signing of the 38-year-old center: “I think it’s good for the Celtics. He’ll be a much better backup than they had. I think it will rejuvenate him. They’re such a great team, he won’t notice as many aches and pains as he noticed in Chicago and San Antonio, because he’ll be chasing championship rings. It’ll make him feel a whole lot younger . . . and he’ll give Robert Parish some much needed rest.”

Parish isn’t the only Celtic who may be in need of a breather. Boston has won 10 of 12 since losing to the Lakers on Dec. 11, but as usual, Coach K.C. Jones is making ironmen out of the starting five. Bird has played 41 or more minutes in 9 straight games and 10 of the last 11. And the Celtic bench, after averaging 25.7 points in 69 minutes before Christmas, is averaging 10.5 points and 44.8 minutes since.

How much Gilmore will contribute is debatable, especially considering how much help the Chicago Bulls had needed at center.

Gilmore, who signed for $150,000 with the Celtics, was reportedly offered much more by Phoenix, but he said he wanted a shot at a title.

“I talked to a lot of other teams, but this is where I wanted to be. . . . I’ve been in a lot of places and played a long time, and that championship is the one thing that has eluded me,” the 7-foot 2-inch center said.

In a recent poll of the greatest moments in Wisconsin sports history, Laker backup guard Wes Matthews’ 50-foot shot in 1979 to beat Michigan State--and Magic Johnson--ranked fifth. The shot gave the University of Wisconsin a victory over the Spartans, who were Big Ten co-champions and national champions that season.

Johnson still shakes his head about the shot. “We were so mad at Judd,” he said, referring to Michigan State Coach Judd Heathcote. “We had been pressing, but Judd called it off.”

“And that,” said Matthews, chortling, “gave me a clear lane to the basket. Magic went like this (he looked skyward).”

Said Johnson: “As soon as he made it, I looked at Judd.”

Seattle’s high-scoring troika of Xavier McDaniel, Tom Chambers, and Dale Ellis combined to score 77 of the SuperSonics’ 108 points in a one-point loss to Sacramento Sunday night. That was still 30 points fewer than the trio had the night before against San Antonio, when Ellis had a career-high 47, Chambers 32 and McDaniel 28.

Meanwhile, the Seattle centers, Alton Lister and Cleamon Johnson, both shot 0 for 2 against the Kings and combined for two points in 40 minutes.

Of the players inducted into the Hall of Fame who performed in the ‘60s and ‘70s, only three never played for a championship team: Nate Thurmond, Jack Twyman and Pete Maravich.

The Houston Rockets lost their first three games after trading for Sleepy Floyd and Joe Barry Carroll, but the newcomers had only one practice. Since then, the Rockets have won 7 of 9 games. Floyd is averaging 16.5 points, 6.7 assists and 5.5 rebounds as a Rocket. Carroll’s numbers: 11.8 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1 block.

What’s in a name? Plenty, if you’re Chicago rookie Horace Grant, who was pleased just to have Coach Doug Collins call him by his first name. Collins had taken to calling Grant “Harvey,” the name of Grant’s twin brother who is starring at the University of Oklahoma, and said he would do so until Horace began playing as well as Harvey.

After Grant scored 12 points, blocked 6 shots and grabbed 6 rebounds against Denver last week, Collins embraced him and called him Horace.

“I told Horace, ‘Way to deliver for us,’ ” Collins said. “He’s got a chance to be a big-time player. He’s got a lot of heart, and I’m really proud of him.”

Said Horace: “It’ll probably be back to Harvey in practice tomorrow.”

Wes Unseld, new coach of the Washington Bullets, was asked what traits he might borrow from the coaches for whom he played.

“From Dick (Motta), it could be execution,” said Unseld, one of only two players (Wilt Chamberlain was the other) to be named most valuable player and rookie of the year in the same season.

“From Gene (Shue), it would be defense. And conditioning. From K.C. (Jones), it would be the way he handled people. I just thought he knew how to handle players better than anybody I know. From Kevin (Loughery), intensity.”