Two of an Elite Kind, in Sharp Contrast : Cotton Fitzsimmons: Last season’s coach of the year is casually intense when expressing his views on his weekly TV show.

Klieg lights burn on Cotton Fitzsimmons’ already reddened forehead. He sits rigidly on a backless stool in front of a thrown-together set at Max’s Sports Bar, awaiting the cue to start reciting ads for his weekly television show.

All Fitzsimmons has to do is read a few lines, and then they will move on to taping the show itself. But the Phoenix Suns’ coach keeps flubbing the lines. The smile remains pasted on his face. The studio audience nervously titters. Finally, he makes it through, almost screaming into the camera . . .

So, watch the Suns on Channel 10, and we’ll beat L.A. together . . . .

It is obvious, to anyone who knows him, that Fitzsimmons cannot be scripted. He is most at ease, most natural, when he is allowed, as he puts it, to run his mouth.

“Sometimes I open it,” Fitzsimmons said recently, “and I don’t know what’s coming out.” His weekly show here, which airs Sunday nights at 10:30 and reportedly draws high ratings, is loosely formatted and often irreverent. One hundred percent Cotton, in other words. You could call it off the cuff, except Fitzsimmons doesn’t wear them. He wears a T-shirt and a relaxed manner.

His show, “The Cotton Express,” which is taped on Friday nights, best shows what separates him from the generic NBA coach. Fitzsimmons can X and O with the best of them, but he would rather talk about something else.

He won the league’s coach-of-the-year award last season for leading the Suns to a 27-game turnaround from the previous season, but characteristically downplays his influence.

At 58, and with his fifth NBA team, Fitzsimmons says in the next couple of years he will move upstairs and turn over the Suns to assistant Paul Westphal.

That day, however, seems far off now. Fitzsimmons, who will bring his Suns to the Forum tonight for Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals, says he never frets about games. To quote one of his favorite aphorisms, “The only game you worry about is the one where you wash the socks and jocks afterward.”

Although a native Missourian, Fitzsimmons’ accent is hard to place. It is as if he has combined the dialects from all the cities where he has coached--Phoenix, Atlanta, Buffalo, Kansas City, San Antonio--and blended them into a gravely, twangy, not-quite-Southern delivery. It is not a classic television voice, not even the standard deep and authoritative tone of a coach. But such qualities are unimportant in this atmosphere of unconventionality. Al McCoy, a Suns’ broadcaster and co-host of the show, said Fitzsimmons has been chased around the set by the Gorilla, the team’s mascot, and has traded on-air insults--in fun--with star guard Kevin Johnson.

“When we went to Cotton about doing this show, he said he didn’t want to do an X-and-O thing or have boring talk like all the other guys,” said James LeMay, the show’s executive producer. “It certainly isn’t that.”

SEGMENT 1: LIVE ON TAPE, IT’S . . .

Fitzsimmons, wearing a white “Cotton Express” T-shirt and faded blue pants, stands between two members of a studio audience numbering about 40. He could post-up the teen-age girl, who stands about 5 feet, but is overshadowed by a male fan, about 5-8.

Smiling, Fitzsimmons gets the nod from the floor manager and, with a swell of applause, starts in. The smile fades, however, and Fitzsimmons waves it off.

“No red light,” he says, smiling. “I saw that. You want me to waste my time, don’t you?”

Take 2 goes more smoothly.

“Welcome to another playoff edition of ‘The Cotton Express.’ Stay with us for a good show . . . “

Fitzsimmons tells the viewers that, on this show, Westphal will be the guest and they will hear taped interviews with Laker Coach Pat Riley and guard Magic Johnson. Normally, Fitzsimmons has at least one Sun as a guest, but since it was taped Friday night, he wanted his players to rest for Saturday afternoon’s game.

They go to the break, and someone in the audience asks when Riley will be there, and Fitzsimmons says, “They are on tape. They are taking it easy at their hotel.”

Everyone laughs.

BETWEEN-TAKE INTERLUDE

Max Beyer, the Max of Max’s Sports Bar, mingles with the fans and local VIPs, including Fitzsimmons’ wife, JoAnn. The burly Beyer is a big figure in the Phoenix sports scene, and he has a story for everything.

Beyer says of the set, which includes the front of a freight train with “Cotton Express” and, in slightly smaller letters, “Max’s Special” stenciled across it: “You know, that’s half the size of an actual train. We had a real hard time doing that to specification. We got pictures of trains, and they were all different. . . . But it looks nice, though.”

SEGMENT 2: COTTON’S VIEWS

An attendant dabs the perspiring forehead of Fitzsimmons, who has changed into a purple T-shirt bearing the logo “Beat L.A.”

Fitzsimmons, now joined by McCoy on the other stool, is pointed at by the floor director, who signals to the audience for applause.

McCoy: “Well, Cotton, this must have been a busy week for you . . . “

Cotton: “It certainly is. But I’m surprised you still have a voice left, Al.”

Big laughs.

McCoy: “We’ve talked so much about how to get the club ready for 82 games in a season. Now, it’s the playoffs. How do you get them ready for that?”

Fitzsimmons: “Oh, yes, it’s much different. You play the same team, night after night. Sometimes, during the regular season, you don’t see a team in a month. But in the playoffs, you have time to prepare and it all comes down to execution, Al.”

McCoy: “There have been some surprises lately, the biggest to a lot of people being Jimmy Rodgers (who was fired) at Boston.”

Fitzsimmons: “I don’t feel too sorry for the Boston Celtics. . . . (Laughs) It might be a downward fall for the Celtics now. I thought Jimmy Rodgers would be there for years to come . . . the coach there for a decade.”

The two continue to discuss the numerous coaching vacancies for several minutes.

McCoy: “Yes, Cotton, and who knows what the Clippers will do?”

Fitzsimmons: “Who does? Who knows what the Clippers will ever do?”

McCoy introduces a regular feature, Cotton’s “Slam Jam of the Week.” This week, it is Detroit’s John Salley dunking after getting a pass from Bill Laimbeer.

“Here’s Salley going in for the dunk,” Fitzsimmons says, looking at the replay on a monitor. “A dunk is always better when you’re fouled.”

BETWEEN-TAKE INTERLUDE

JoAnn Fitzsimmons is sitting beyond camera range talking with Westphal. When Westphal leaves to prepare for his segment, JoAnn tells a friend and a visitor the horror of watching her husband wear a golf shirt with a fly-away collar in Game 1.

Fitzsimmons had forgotten his shirt, and borrowed trainer Joe Proski’s golf shirt for the game. He made the mistake of wearing a tie. That night, he ended a personal 37-game Forum losing streak.

JoAnn Fitzsimmons says that, as she watched the telecast in Phoenix, she paid more attention to her disheveled husband than the game. “I kept saying to him through the TV, ‘Honey, fix your collar,’ ” she says. “By halftime, it had gotten worse. Both sides of the collar were standing up. On TV, they kept switching back and forth between Cotton and that shirt and perfect Pat (Riley) and his suit. Then, I started yelling to Paul, ‘Tell him to fix his collar.’ Finally, I noticed there were no cuffs, so I knew it wasn’t his shirt.”

SEGMENT 3: COTTON AND HIS SUCCESSOR

Fitzsimmons, who announced before last season that Westphal will eventually take over, is joined on stage by his top assistant, a former Sun and Celtic guard. McCoy sits between.

Westphal wears a plaid shirt, not a T-shirt. He wants Cotton’s job, not his fashion sense.

Fitzsimmons: “Paul, let me ask you a question. When you won that championship in Boston--I know they’ve won many--but what did it mean to the city?”

Westphal: “The city just goes nuts. The politicians get on the platforms, and everybody gets involved when you win.”

BETWEEN-TAKE INTERLUDE

The problem with Fitzsimmons, someone facetiously says to his wife, is that he’s just too shy. That remark is made just after Fitzsimmons laughs heartily at a remark on the set.

JoAnn Fitzsimmons, as extroverted as her husband, replies: “He loves doing that show. It’s fun for him. When that camera goes on, he’s on. But at home, I have trouble getting him to open his mouth sometimes.”

She says she isn’t joking.

SEGMENT 4: Q & A

“Cotton, you’ll open with a two-shot to Al,” the director instructs before the red light comes on.

Fitzsimmons does not wait for the applause to die. He jumps right into the question-and-answer session.

One man asks about the importance of Mark West, and Fitzsimmons gives the same answer he gives reporters. “We need production from him to win.” The fan, in appreciation, then gives Fitzsimmons a wooden “Cotton Express” train whistle, on sale at Max’s.

Another man asks why assists are so readily awarded in the NBA.

Fitzsimmons leaps at this question. This is one of his peeves.

“Unfortunately, in the NBA, we think they are much too liberal with the assists. You throw the ball into the post. He holds it, holds it, like James Worthy, then spins and scores and the guy who passes it gets an assist. It’s too liberal.”

A fan named Amir, from Israel, asks: “If you pass the Lakers, what do you think you will do in the conference championships?”

Fitzsimmons says: “If we beat the Lakers, we’ll be so (happy), I don’t think we’ll be able to come down for the Western Conference finals.”

Big laughs.

Fitzsimmons squares to the camera.

“We thank you for being with us. We hope you can join us next week because we want to still be around to have another edition of ‘The Cotton Express.’ ”