With the Suns Put in Their Place, the Lakers Ride Off Into the Sunset

Another NBA Team of the Future’s future has just been put behind it by the L.A. Lakers. That object growing smaller in the Lakers’ rear-view mirror is the Phoenix Suns.

Another worthy opponent has been reduced to road kill.

It’s almost unfair. Even the Lakers don’t seem to realize how good they are.

“We’re a pretty solid team,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said with a straight face after the Lakers beat the Suns Sunday, 122-117, for another series sweep.

Whoah, Big Fella! Let’s not get swept away in the hysteria of the moment.

Actually, Kareem’s outlook was pretty much the prevailing mood of the team after Sunday’s win, which clinched yet another Western Conference championship. If the Lakers did any crazy whooping and hollering after the game, they did it in the privacy of their locker room, and if they did, it probably was because the showers were too cold.

OK, Magic Johnson was jumping up and down and yelling in excitement. But that was Saturday, when he was watching the Bulls beat the Pistons.

“I just went crazy,” he admitted. “I was jumpin’ up like a fan.”

By Sunday Magic had lapsed back to his usual dour, workmanlike playoff self.

“You don’t see us smilin’, jokin’ around,” he said. “We’re all business.”

Did the Lakers pop some champagne?

Please. Don’t insult these fellas. They sipped diet colas, knotted their ties, snapped shut their attache cases and blew out Phoenix before the sun had set and the smoke had cleared and the tears had dried.

This Laker club is a team with an attitude.

Like, why shouldn’t the Lakers sweep the Suns, after sweeping the Trail Blazers and the SuperSonics?

“We’re a better team than (the Suns),” Magic said, quietly. “That’s the bottom line. They’re a great team, we’re just better.

“We weren’t never gonna lose. We never felt threatened. At any time (during the series). We just felt confident all the time. There’s a difference from feeling comfortable and feeling squeezed.”

Guard Kevin Johnson, one of the squeezed Suns, put it another way earlier in the series, when he said of the Lakers: “They don’t flinch.”

That is as good a definition of the 1988-89 Lakers as you are going to hear.

This team is relentlessly cool and efficient.

Hear me now and believe me later: If the Lakers manage to win the NBA finals, and do so in convincing fashion, like five games, you have yourself a strong candidate for greatest team of all time.

They’ve even surprised Pat Riley, the coach, who blasted his team when they lost to the Suns by 23 points in the final regular-season game here.

“Maybe I ought to give this team more credit than I do,” Riley said Sunday. “Maybe they knew how to peak at the right time. I stood here in Phoenix (after the 23-point loss) and said that I failed them. (Assistant coach Bill) Bertka told me at the time, ‘Don’t lose faith in them.’ ”

Apparently Riley didn’t. He has to get some of the credit for Sunday, having his team prepared to play to kill despite the motivation-sapping reality of an obese 3-0 series lead.

The first two minutes were all Laker highlight, an 11-0 run and as pretty an opening statement as you will see, unless you’re a Sun fan.

The Suns felt they did an excellent job at taking away what the Lakers wanted to do and making them do things they didn’t want to do.

For instance, the Suns wanted Michael Cooper to take three-point shots, as opposed, say, to James Worthy taking three-inch shots.

So in Game 3, Cooper was four for four from way out there, and Sunday he hit his first two bombs. This is the guy who said Saturday, “Any time I score, it’s like gravy on the cake.”

Or icing on the pot roast.

The Suns are an excellent team, but someone left their cake out in the rain, and they’ll never have that recipe again.

If the Lakers’ start was impressive Sunday, their finish was almost scary. The Lakers buried 10 of 10 free throws in the final 1:07.

Not a flinch in the bunch.

“They were good,” said Sun Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons, with deep conviction. Then Cotton thought about it for a moment and said, “Damn they were good.”

This is like Kareem saying the team is real solid.

Last year the Lakers struggled every step of the way in the playoffs.

“We took the scenic route last year to the finals,” said Mychal Thompson. “This year we’re taking the shortcut through the alleys and side streets.”

Actually it’s more like they’re taking the Polar route. This is no back-street team. The Lakers can’t sneak up on anyone anymore.

Despite their incessant whining that nobody gave them a chance to win it all this year, the Lakers are universally respected and feared around the league, and never taken for granted, not even when they fail to go 82-0 for the regular season.

Still, not many people predicted they would be 11-0 in the playoffs now.

Trust me on this: They are making it look easier than it really is. It’s an amazing thing the Lakers have been doing in these playoffs.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that fact sunk in Sunday evening and they got really crazy on the flight home from here, ordering non-diet sodas and extra salted peanuts, and snoring extra loud.

But if they did, I have confidence they’ll regain their dignity and composure and bounce back in time for the NBA finals, because this is a pretty solid team.