Laker-Piston Series Seems to Be Suited for a Seventh Game

Chuck Daly said: “I don’t know if I have the, uh, guts to do it. Go talk to Riley. Tell him I will if he will.”

So, I went to Pat Riley.

Riles, I said, if there is a Game 7 next Tuesday between the Lakers and Pistons--as there very well might be--Daly says he will coach in a tuxedo if you will.

Riley thought it over for, oh, at least half a second.

“No,” he said.

No?

As in no way?

No way we can get the two best-dressed, best-tressed coaches in the National Basketball Assn. to put the final, formal touches on this fun-to-watch championship series?

No way we can get these fashion plates to look fabulous for the Forum?

No way purple and gold goes with a black-tie affair?

What a bummer. Usually we hear about teams winning ugly. Here we finally have a chance to see somebody win pretty.

We could get Billy Crystal to go up to both coaches and say in his best Fernando Lamas accent: “Pot, Chock--ju luke mahvelous.”

All we have to do is get Riley and Daly to wear their evening wear. Slick back their hair, splash on some Aramis and tuck their ruffled shirts into their tuxes.

Daly has been dropping hints for weeks now that if Detroit should ever get into such a glamorous position as to be in a Game 7 for the NBA championship, he would come dressed for the occasion. At the very least, an all-white, Tom Wolfe-like linen suit. At the most, a tux. In his considerable closet, Daly’s got a black After Six model that’s just dying to be taken out and worn.

“I don’t even know if I can squeeze into it any more,” Daly said. “I had it when I was coaching at Penn, so it’s got to be at least 12 or 14 years old. It’ll probably fit, but it’s old.”

All right, I said, enough of this shilly-shallying. Yes or no. Tux or no tux?

“I don’t know if I have the . . . you know,” Daly said. “I could always do my usual thing and rent one. Is there a place out in L.A.?”

No, I said, making a face. We all own our tuxedos out there. And so do our butlers. Of course you can rent one.

“OK. Go check with Riley. Tell him if he will, I will,” Daly said.

Great. Having checked with Chuck, I went for the Pat answer. I expected a “yes,” a “maybe,” a “possibly,” an “I don’t know,” a “my tux is at the cleaners,” maybe even “my dog ate it.”

Instead, Riley did his Nancy Reagan impression. He just said no.

Come on, Riles, I said. This situation is tailor-made.

Sorry, Riles As in Styles said, whereupon he told me a weird little story.

“I had a dream about this,” Riley said. “I did. In ‘82, I was finishing up my first year of coaching, and to me the seventh game was the ultimate game. And I had this dream. It was really surreal.

“I dreamed that I was coaching, and my wife, Chris, was sitting across from me--you know, like where Dyan Cannon usually sits in the front row--and she had her avocado green prom dress on.”

Who, I asked--Dyan Cannon?

“No, my wife,” Riley said. “And she looked like she was, you know, 17. And I was on the other side of the room, and I was in a white tuxedo. A prom tuxedo.”

And the opponent was . . . ?

“And the opponent was anybody,” Riley said. “Could have been anybody. It was a game. It was a seventh game.

“And every single night in this dream, the game came down to the wire, to the final shot taken . . .

“And then it would freeze. And I’d wake up.

“Every night it would be a different person taking the shot. One night Jack Curran, our trainer, took the shot. I’m going: ‘Jack! Jack! What are you doing?’ Next night, the scorer threw it up. Next night, the opposition. One night, one of our guys threw one up at their basket. Then I’d wake up.”

So, you see a link between wearing a tuxedo and this Nightmare on Prairie Street dream of yours?

“Well, wait a minute, let me tell you . . . “ Riley said.

“It got to be 1984, and I’m still having the same dream. And people are telling me, you know, I’ve got to play this thing out. The dream must mean something. It must be trying to tell me something. They said: ‘If you ever get to a seventh game, you’ve got to wear the tux.’ Because that means something.”

Ah, the 1982 series against the Philadelphia 76ers never got to a seventh game. It only went six.

Exactly, Riley nodded.

“So, the seventh game in ‘84, I brought it,” he said. “I brought one to Boston Garden--a white dinner jacket. Took it with me when I left L.A.”

You rented it?

“Yes, I rented it.”

So now, you’re sitting in your hotel room in Boston, and it’s time to dress for the game, and what do you do?

“I put it in a box and brought it with me to the arena,” Riley said.

And?

“And I never put it on.”

And?

Wait. Never mind. I already know the “and?”

And the Lakers lost.

All those Boston fans in their green beanies had enough fun that day without having a chance to hoot a losing coach who wore a white dinner jacket with a red bow tie.

Exactly, Riley nodded.

The rest, of course, is fashion history. The Lakers won the NBA championship in 1985, Boston won in 1986, the Lakers again in 1987.

Except, there has never been another Game 7. Not one Game 7 in the NBA finals since the Laker-Celtic dream game of 1984--the game Pat Riley nearly coached in a garment that would have made him look like a cross between James Bond and a Reno blackjack dealer.

Now, if Detroit wins Game 5 here tonight and the Lakers take Game 6 Sunday in Inglewood--or the other way around--there will be a Game 7 Tuesday at the Forum.

“We gotta get there first,” Daly says, and that’s true. The coaches have more important things to worry about. Yet wouldn’t it be nice if . . .

“No,” Riley said, shaking his head as though his mind were almost completely made up. “I think it’d be wonderful, I think people’d get a kick out of it, but what you do is put yourself out in front of the real show, and that’s not right.”

He’ll just stick with his lucky blue suit. Besides, nobody cares about what the coach wears. Right, Riles?

Right, Riles?

“Well, I wore a beige one in Game 6 over at Utah, and I got about 30 letters after we lost. ‘Goldammit, Riley! Don’t you ever wear another light-colored suit! Don’t you know you’re only good in navy blue? Navy blue blazers and gray pants and red ties!’ ”

Maybe he could pick out something in a nice avocado.