When Suns Get Well, Lakers Get Sick : Basketball: Former hospital cases Majerle, Miller do damage in victory that keeps Phoenix’s season going.

In the end, it came down to this: two Suns rose out of their hospital beds to beat the Lakers.

One of them was the previously frosty-fingered Dan Majerle, whose jump shot all series long looked ill.

Actually, Majerle ended up being sick. He was admitted to a hospital Sunday morning because of a virus, spent a couple hours there with an IV in his arm, showed up about an hour before gametime and scored 19 points, two of them when he rained a jump shot through the hoop with 13.6 seconds to play to send the game into overtime.

Sun Coach Paul Westphal, who said he thought Majerle wasn’t going to be able to play, knew just what to do.

“We held him to 46 minutes (of playing time) because of his condition,” Westphal said.

The condition of the Suns improved dramatically when the horn sounded to end their 112-104 overtime decision over the Lakers.

But from Majerle’s jump shot until the final horn, the game was Oliver Miller time. In the overtime, he threw his weight around, all 282 pounds of it.

Now, this might seem like a lot, but not when you consider he was 41 pounds lighter than before the season, when he realized he needed help and checked into a hospital to get thin quick.

Miller had nine of his 17 points and five of his 14 rebounds in the overtime as the Lakers were straining to win a series that probably shouldn’t have been close.

For the Lakers, it was a great effort, nearly a monumental upset, a possible last dance for a couple of veterans and an opportunity to see how team themes have changed from Showtime to Slowtime.

If Byron Scott had hit that shot with the score tied in the last second of the fourth quarter. . . .

“Look, they had one shot, the last shot, to win the game,” Kevin Johnson said. “I think that was as much of a chance as you can ask for, going in.”

And for the Suns, getting past the Lakers was hugely important, what with their newfound title in the Pacific Division and their new building downtown and their new star. Before the season, expectations expanded at the same pace as Miller’s girth.

Much was at stake. Lose to the Lakers and those cherry-wood lockers, the big-screen television, the state-of-the-art weight room and glittering practice facility in the America West Arena would be empty, silent, deserted and dark for the summer.

Majerle and Miller didn’t let it happen.

The Lakers, successfully playing slowpoke, led, 95-91, with 58 seconds to play. Charles Barkley cut the lead to two points with a jump shot from the baseline, then the Suns got the ball back with 25.9 seconds left.

Johnson drove the middle and passed to Majerle, 17 feet from the hoop. Majerle knew what to do, which was to shoot, even though he knew he had been successful doing that only 31% of the time in the series.

But up he jumped and in it went.

“Kevin penetrated and James Worthy kind of turned his back,” Majerle said. “I just kind of let it go. It just went in.”

It was that simple. Really. Must be, because Barkley said it was.

“Good shot, good pressure shot, and it went in. What else is there?” Barkley said.

Maybe just Miller, or what’s left of him. Since the Suns drafted him out of Arkansas, he has lost 60 pounds. Westphal said he would like Miller to drop about 20 more.

“Then we think we have a center,” he said.

Miller spent nearly two weeks in the hospital to try to get his weight under control. Under 24-hour supervision, he lost the weight quickly. To keep it off, Miller knows what he has to do.

“Stay away from McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Pizza Hut,” he said.