The Fact Is, This Decade Is Different

Well, we’ll see you again next season on the Fifth-Place Los Angeles Laker Basketball Network. So long, everybody.

Game, set, season.

Seeing is believing, and the Phoenix Suns, the surest shots to be employed in the state of Arizona since Wyatt Earp cleaned up Tombstone, plugged the Lakers right in the heart Tuesday night.

They not only beat them, they embarrassed them. Spotted them 15 points and still beat them. Spat right in their faces. Pretended the Lakers were just another team. Shook their fannies at them and strutted away. Gave them a good Sun mooning.

Final score in Game 5 was 106-103, giving Kevin Johnson, Tom Chambers, Mark West, Jeff Hornacek, Kurt Rambis, Dan Majerle, Eddie Johnson and all their friends and fans the right to thumb their noses at anyone and everyone who told them they had no chance.

As for the Lakers, all we can say is: Sorry. It happens to the best of them.

They came to the game gold, violet and violent. A.C. Green rear-ended Chambers, who responded with a roundhouse right. Kevin Johnson gave a bump to Byron Scott, who hunted him down to retaliate. Vlade Divac didn’t much care for the way one Sun player Vlade-slammed him to the floor, so he struck another with the basketball. These were dangerous Laker-Sun liaisons.

The Lakers also came to the game with fingers crossed. They gave Divac his first start of the playoffs, looking for some of his boundless energy and enthusiasm to rub off. They gave the ball to Scott and begged: “Shoot!” The ever-loyal Chick Hearn watched Scott miss the first shot he took, then dutifully reported to his radio-TV audience: “But it was close!”

Before long, Magic Johnson went into his thou-shalt-not-lose mode. Twice, in two possessions, he went coast to coast. Magic went through the lane like a bus. He didn’t slip, didn’t slide, didn’t slither. He steamrolled. Knees high, elbows extended, Magic transformed himself into a 6-foot-9 machete, clearing his own path. By quarter’s end, the Lakers led by a bunch. The score was also: Suns 20, Johnson 19.

If only the game could have ended there. If only L.A. could have enjoyed a cozy, comfy evening of basketball. Nothing like a good slaughter to make a team and a town feel whole again.

Next thing anybody knew, though, their 15-point advantage had been sliced and diced, and Phoenix continued to be The Team That Won’t Go Away. Just as they did against Utah, when all seemed dark and hopeless, the Suns just kept on shining. Kurt Rambis made a couple of free throws, tying the score before the end of the third period, and the Lakers suddenly found themselves in Final Jeopardy.

They remained uptight. When Orlando Woolridge wasn’t able to get off a shot, he stuffed the ball into Chambers’ body. Maybe he was hoping to blur the hottest Sun’s shooting eye.

It became clear, in any case, that the Lakers were pressing, that they were having a serious collective anxiety attack. And when Rambis went after Woolridge with an angry gleam in his lenses, it also became clear, once and for all, whose side Kurt is now on. More than one Laker era seemed to be ending.

Rambis knew the enemy better than anyone out there. That was evident with five minutes remaining in the game, when Magic made the move that fools 99% of the league. He drove, then did a 180-degree turn toward the hoop. Only Rambis was standing there waiting, rigid as the Statue of Liberty. He was knocked down, drawing the foul.

Both the game and its players got tighter and tighter. Mark West apparently was tired of Divac’s bearded face, so he whistled a flying elbow smack into the middle of it. Vlade flinched, but didn’t fight back, which was smart. Unfortunately, Magic made one of his semiannual mistakes, blowing the technical free throw.

What wasn’t as smart was the foul Divac picked up, his sixth, in the final two minutes. For one thing, the Phoenix shooter was far from the basket. For another, it happened to be Hornacek, who could make free throws blindfolded. He made these two with ease.

Five points down the Lakers found themselves in the season’s final 60 seconds--all dressed up, no place to go. Scott sank two of those three-point jobs Los Angeles had wanted and needed for so long, but they weren’t enough. Nor was Magic’s wild, death-defying charge to the hoop in the last few seconds, when he was reminded, as he was against Houston in long-ago 1981, that every once in a while he must miss a crucial shot.

The last official act of the season was Michael Cooper’s airball pass. It came closer to Cotton Fitzsimmons than it did to any Laker. That was fitting. Game ball to Cotton and the Suns. They earned it.

As for the losers, well, the 1990s have only just begun, but we can already tell you that as decades go, this one leaves a lot to be desired. And so did the Los Angeles Lakers, alas, against the Phoenix Suns.