Attention, Lost & Found: Cooper’s Shot Is Missing in Action

For Michael Cooper, the hits just keep coming. He shoots, the ball slams off the side of the rim.

The ball comes his way again. He forces himself to step up and launch. Similar result.

The ball finds him again, it’s uncanny how the damn thing keeps coming around and finding him. He’d rather guard Akeem Olajuwon in the low post by himself for a month than take this one, but he knows his duty. Off she goes. Clank city.

Put it all together and Cooper went 1 for 7 Tuesday night, making him 3 for 25 in this series, or 12%. This would be low in baseball, but in the National Basketball Assn. Finals, it’s off the charts. Cooper’s sidekick, Mychal Thompson, a.k.a. the other half of the Laker bench, is bogged down at 27.8%, and the Piston reserves have outscored the Laker subs, 136-36.

Does this weigh heavily on Cooper?

He says it doesn’t, but what’s a man prone to worry, strung tight as a violin string, going to say?

“I CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE! I’M GOING HOME! I RETIRE!”

Nah, wouldn’t be professional. A veteran of seven championship series marshals what’s left of his confidence, makes as many jokes as he can think of and forges on.

“I really don’t know why it’s happening,” he said after a 20-minute period of somber reflection in the shower. “I don’t know why they’re not going in.

“Of course, I’m not putting them in.”

Talk about your bad timing. Through the first three playoff series, Cooper was shooting 51.7%. From three-point range, he was a torrid 52.4%. In the Utah series, he hit the game-winner with seven seconds left in the all-important Game 5.

But he missed his first shot of this series, and after that, things got tough.

“What can I do?” he said. “Keep shooting. That’s the only thing I can do, the only thing a shooter can do.

“The guys have confidence in me, I have to have confidence in myself. But any time I miss 1-2 shots, I have a tendency not to want to shoot again. I have to break myself of that.

“I can’t worry about it. My offense isn’t going to save this team. I think my defense is more important, and I didn’t come out as aggressively as I should. I let Vinnie (Johnson) establish himself tonight.

“I’m not doing the kinds of things I have to do to be in the offense: get my hands on loose balls, get on the floor, get floor burns. It’s been a long time since I dived on the floor, but you’ll see a different Michael Cooper next game.”

In the meantime, his teammates tell him not to pass up any shots, and the trainer hides all the pointed objects when he’s around. Cooper laughs it off as best he can. A couple of days ago, he joked that he just needed to get Michael Cooper’s kind of shots: “Wide open . . . feet together . . . eyes closed.”

He has been in slumps before. How does he handle them, shoot a lot on off days, forget about shooting?

“I shoot more,” he said, spotting a straight line. “Nobody’s in the gym, so they can’t get hurt.

“You know, it might sound crazy but when I shoot the basketball, it feels good. All of them felt good tonight except the one I missed on a two-on-one break.

“I’m very surprised when they miss. They’re hitting the side of the basket. That’s what appalls me a little.

“Last but not least, when you can’t blame anyone, it’s your wife’s fault.”

Has Wanda ever given him any tips, and if so, where is she when he needs her?

“She used to,” Cooper said. “All last year, she’d say she was working with me. This year, she won’t take credit.”

The year has some time left. Send your recipes for recovery to Michael Cooper, Silverdome, Pontiac, Mich. Anyone coming up with a winner gets a Pat Riley I-guarantee-we’ll-repeat T-shirt and a handshake from a relieved veteran.