NBA PLAYOFFS : As Expert, He Can Go to Blazers

Portland is going to take the NBA championship. We might as well get this out of the way right here in the first paragraph, which could save you the trouble of reading the second.

Originally, I had intended to pick Phoenix, but after further consideration, I came to the conclusion: “Phoenix???”

And it won’t be Utah, although if Utah ever does win a championship in something, hey, those Salt Lakers will be out dancing in the streets, except for the ones whose religion forbids them to dance.

Then I was going to go with San Antonio, but I figure now that Jerry Tarkanian is involved, it won’t be long before the Spurs are on probation. I have it on good authority that the Spurs are being followed by NBA investigators, some of whom have heard that San Antonio boosters have been giving some of the players summer jobs.

Nope, it’s Portland’s year.

Sorry that I cannot find it somewhere in my heart (big as it is) to predict that either the Lakers or Clippers will be winning the NBA championship, but a voice inside my brain (small as it is) keeps telling me that Portland could defeat a team made up of the Lakers and the Clippers.

As some of you undoubtedly will remember from a previous column--and, by the way, get a life--I did express my opinion that the Clipmeisters would win one out of two at Utah, then sweep two games at home to win that first-round playoff series.

This will in turn result in an all-time epidemic of Clipper fever, as well as the biggest sales yet of Clipper Girl calendars and videos.

Well, I haven’t changed my mind. The Clippers will eliminate all those Jazz, leaving the heart-broken fans there to wait for football, baseball and hockey season--not.

As for the Lakers, I can’t tell you how impressed I was with them last Sunday when they defeated their two-on-the-town rivals in the Greatest Regular-Season Game Ever Played, that one-point overtime victory that put the purple people in the playoffs for the 2,000th consecutive season.

But I just don’t see them beating Portland.

I know, I know--last season I saw them beat Portland. But that was back when the Lakers had that Johnson guy and that Worthy guy and that Perkins guy and, oh, you know, those other reasonably helpful dudes.

Anyway, if the Lakers take this series, it is my personal opinion that Mike Dunleavy should be signed to a 2,000-year contract.

I look for Portland to come out of the Western Conference and for the Portland Oregonian newspaper to refuse on ethnic grounds to publish the words “San” or “Antonio.”

Now, then:

About that other conference.

I realize that many of you out there in fan land are under the mistaken impression that Michael Jordan and his mates from the Watery City are going to win NBA championships back-to-back.

Wrong, Bull breath.

Yes, Chicago did complete the regular season with a record of 81-1 or whatever it was, but I believe the woolly Bullies will be distracted and disorganized in the playoffs, particularly after Jordan misses the first half of one of their games because of a late tee time.

Another Laker-Bull series or a Clipper-Bull series is out of the question because the NBA cannot afford to spend that much time in Los Angeles and Chicago and pay all those premiums on earthquake and flood insurance.

I look for the New York Knicks to make the finals against Portland, after which they will drop four in a row--100-65, 110-68, 125-69 and, ultimately, 140-71 as Pat Riley’s offense finally gets on track.

Until this season, I never thought it mattered much in professional basketball who coached the teams.

And it doesn’t seem to matter much to the teams themselves. San Antonio and Phoenix are playing one another in the playoffs and both of them already have picked somebody else to coach them next season. (One of them should bring in Steve Fisher from Michigan, if only for a few weeks.)

However, I must admit that Riley did make a difference in New York, and Kevin Loughery made a difference in Miami, and George Karl made a difference in Seattle and Larry Brown made a major difference with the U.S.S. Minnow of basketball teams, the Clippers.

By sheer coincidence, 1992 happens to mark the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovering of America as well as the 500th anniversary of the Clippers’ last appearance in the playoffs.

And, by an even bigger coincidence, both Columbus and Danny Ferry ended up living in Italy.

I’m picking Portland to eliminate both the Lakers and Clippers on their way to the championship, but the most important thing for everybody to remember here is, what do I know?

* THE JOB MARKET

Two coaches are fired--Paul Westhead by Denver and Frank Hamblen by Milwaukee--and Cotton Fitzsimmons announces he will step down as coach of the Phoenix Suns after the season. C2