He Comes Off Bench With a Star’s Touch : Eddie Johnson Powers Suns Past Warriors With 34 Points, 135-99

No one is supposed to be able to work the corners like this without being arrested. The Phoenix Suns’ Eddie Johnson got away without so much as a hand in his face.

Shooting from deep along the baseline, Johnson made six of eight three-point shots and 13 of 20 overall. He scored a game-high 34 points as the Suns beat the Golden State Warriors, 135-99, Saturday before a crowd of 15,025 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. The Suns have a three games-to-one lead in the best-of-seven NBA Western Conference semifinal series.

Right side or left, Johnson slipped away from his defender to launch a wide-open jumper. No Warrior could stop him.

“It makes it that much harder to beat them (the Suns) when he shoots the ball like that,” said Golden State Coach Don Nelson, whose club faces possible elimination Tuesday night at Phoenix. “We left him open on some of our traps, and when we went back to man-to-man, it didn’t matter. He was in a rhythm.”

It’s not something the Suns took for granted. Chosen last week as the National Basketball Assn.’s best sixth man, Johnson was the leading scorer among non-starters, averaging 21.5 points. He had averaged 20.2 in the Suns’ first six playoff games, but, hampered by a calf injury, was shooting only 41.6%, including 22.7% from three-point range.

In the first three games against Golden State, he was two of 10 on three pointers and shot 42.4% overall. Saturday, he missed a pair of two-point attempts to open the game, but then made seven of the next nine to close the first half with 20 points as Phoenix led, 67-61.

When Johnson continued his hot shooting in the second half--and the Suns went on a 19-9 run to open the third quarter--the Warriors were done.

“This is it,” Johnson said, smiling. “I couldn’t get frustrated. I’ve never been in this position before, never been in the semifinals, so I didn’t want to take up my time being frustrated. I was doing the other things all along, like rebounding and playing defense, but it is nice to get going offensively.”

The Suns, who also got 27 points from Tom Chambers, 19 from Kevin Johnson and 16 points and a game-high 13 rebounds from Tyrone Corbin, had a return to form themselves after winning Game 3 despite shooting 39%. They made 51.5% of their attempts Saturday, with Corbin making eight of 12 shots.

“We did OK on offense, but they made us look like a high school team,” Nelson said.

“I don’t know if anyone could have beaten them tonight. We weren’t that bad.”

The Warriors weren’t that good either. They were outrebounded, 74-51, and shot 26.4% (14 of 53) in the second half.

The only drama that remained by the start of the fourth quarter, with Phoenix leading 102-83, was whether Ralph Sampson, the most invisible 7-foot-4, $1.96-million-a-year person in the world, would play. The crowd got into the moment, no doubt realizing it was all they had left.

They chanted, “Ralph, Ralph, Ralph,” in hopes that Nelson, his team having been outrebounded in this series, 235-179, would insert Sampson.

“I thought it was a pretty good idea they had,” Nelson said afterward, “and I needed some ideas.”

So in went Sampson, who did not play at all in the first-round, three-game sweep of Utah and had only a 10-minute appearance against Phoenix in Game 1.

A victim of the Warriors’ turn toward a small lineup, he had four points, four rebounds, three turnovers and two fouls in 12 minutes.

“You never know until you get into the game,” Sampson said. “I would like to try to find out (how he would have fared), but I don’t have the ability to put myself in the game.”

Said Nelson: “I knew Ralph was sitting there and that he had been playing well, especially toward the end of the season. I’ve made a statement that next year will be Ralph’s year, not this year, because the team has sort of established the way it plays.”

Next year appears to be bearing down fast on Golden State, thanks to the Suns and Johnson.

Playoff Notes

Chris Mullin had 28 points and Mitch Richmond 23 for Golden State. No Warrior had more than seven rebounds. . . . Phoenix has won nine consecutive on the road. If they play the Lakers in the conference final, the series would open at the Forum. . . . Warrior center Larry Smith wore a protective mask during the first half after suffering a broken nose Thursday in Game 3. He did not use the mask in the second half. . . . Don Nelson has twice coached teams back from 3-1 deficits in the playoffs to at least force a Game 7. Both times, however, the Milwaukee Bucks ended up losing, in the 1978 Western Conference semifinals and in the 1987 Eastern semifinals.