THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Team of Destiny Is Only Six Deep

Attack of the small-market Lilliputians: One Team of Destiny is already in the finals, and today could make it two.

The Pacers, the pride of rustic Indiana, are underdogs to the Orlando Magic, but despite what you might have read here, they had more left after going seven games with the New York Knicks than you could pick up with a spoon.

It has been a bad spring (season? decade? career?) for the experts, starting with the Rockets’ return to the NBA finals.

What can you say about a team that’s only six deep (the second and third players off the bench are old never-much-when-he-was-young Charles Jones and CBA pickup Chucky Brown), had to play 16 games in 30 days, couldn’t rebound (the Suns hammered them by seven a game), went 5-0 in elimination games, winning Game 5 in Utah and Game 7 in Phoenix, and were 7-3 on the road overall . . . but congratulations?

“When we get to that first media day,” Mario Elie said, “it’s going to be real tempting to say you didn’t think we’d be back, did you?”

Oh yeah, like they did.

No one grumbled more about the Clyde Drexler-Otis Thorpe trade than Elie, although he kept it off the record until recently. Hakeem Olajuwon might have been happy to get his old college teammate back, but as usual he was on his own happy island.

Elie didn’t like it because his minutes went down. Robert Horry didn’t like it because he thought he’d have to play power forward, where they’d expect him to get a rebound here and there. Vernon Maxwell didn’t like it because he thought it was aimed at him, which, of course, it was.

Maxwell did much to help the Rockets--and more that didn’t--but his greatest contribution came late in the regular season when he split.

The Rockets put out various stories about anemia and personal problems, but their real response was: See ya.

Not that the Rockets planned it that way or any way, but with no Maxwell to worry about offending, the polite-to-a-fault Drexler went back to being Drexler. Elie’s minutes went up. Olajuwon was even happier than usual. Chemistry improved all around.

Of course, this would have meant nothing if Olajuwon hadn’t turned other-worldly.

The Rockets were lucky enough to play two teams that were better than they were but had holes at center. Olajuwon started on the greatest roll of his great career.

By the Western Conference finals, when Olajuwon was finally pitted against a real center--by reputation, anyway--he was doing things he didn’t even do in his MVP season a year ago. To his feathery jump shot, he seemed to add the entire Kevin McHale post-up series overnight: the fakes, reserves, step-unders. David Robinson spent most of the conference finals suspended in the air, looking for a Dream that had disappeared on him.

Teams of Destiny are rare in the NBA. It’s one thing to pull off an upset in the NCAA tournament, another to overcome a superior force in a seven-game series, but this is the Real Deal: overmatched and blissfully unconcerned about it.

Of course, the Pacers or Magic should handle them. Orlando can put Horace Grant on Olajuwon and use Shaquille O’Neal to double-team. Or, alternatively, how can the Rockets’ 6-10, 6-10, 6-5 front line stand up to Indiana’s 7-4, 6-11, 6-10?

No way. Not this time. Can’t happen. . . . Can it?

NOW TO THE FUN PART: CARVING UP THE LOSERS

Then there were the San Antonio Spurs.

The operative word is were . As a power, they didn’t amount to much, with their weird power forward, faint-hearted center and uptight coach.

Despite all the happy talk spilling from TV, it would be surprising if the story didn’t leak out that the Spurs were torn apart by the Dennis Rodman circus. They may be the first team that was destroyed by a Sports Illustrated cover.

Ratings zoomed, nevertheless, as a Tonya Harding effect kicked in. Rodman, who had been on his best behavior since January, got weirder.

There was an angry team meeting after the Game 2 loss, in which Rodman had separated himself from the huddle and had to have his instructions relayed to him by Doc Rivers.

TNT, which televised the game, gave it the big treatment, as it should have. Rodman’s disdain for his teammates was manifest. Sideline reporter Kevin Kiley ran a tough series of questions by Rodman, who did one of his run-his-mouth-say-nothing numbers. For whatever it was worth, this was journalism: asking questions.

The NBC guys, however, accused the TNT guys of overreacting in the industry bulletin-board TV critic’s column in USA Today.

When NBC took over the series, it seemed to lean over backward to ignore the Rodman story, praising him over and over as a multidimensional (since when is setting screens a dimension?), team-spirited player who simply wanted to win. Yeah, right. Let’s see how long the Spurs retain their multidimensional, team-spirited player.

Then there’s Robinson, the MVP.

That must stand for Most Valueless Postseason since Olajuwon showed who the Most Valuable Player was, outscoring Robinson, 212-143, outshooting him, outrebounding him, blocking twice as many shots, playing more minutes and, of course, winning.

The amazing thing is that Olajuwon had no history of dominating Robinson. They had generally neutralized each other whenever they met, which would have been enough for the Spurs. Robinson scored as many points as Olajuwon only once, in San Antonio’s Game 4 blowout at Houston.

Robinson has a long string of weak postseason performances, and old questions are surfacing again: Is he tough enough? Does he care? Shouldn’t a 7-foot-2 player develop a post game?

“He was the MVP?” a puzzled Eastern personnel director said. “He should be a combination of Hakeem and Shaq. Mr. America body. As good a shooting touch as any big man in the game.”

It may turn out that Robinson was dismayed by the Rodman mess. Maybe they did too many commercials together--Robinson said the only time they ever talked off the court was on a shoot.

Maybe you really shouldn’t eat your pizza crust first.

FACES AND FIGURES

The Chicago Bulls, who are to the NBA what cactus is to a garden, are at it again. General Manager Jerry Krause gave assistant coach Jim Cleamons a 10-day window to discuss the Toronto coaching job. When the Raptors couldn’t move that fast, Krause withdrew permission, and the Raptors’ Isiah Thomas hired former Detroit Piston assistant Brendan Malone. . . . At a recent meeting, Bull owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who sued the league so he could have his own separate superstation, was asked to leave the room so the other owners could hear a report on the legal situation. As he departed, Reinsdorf told his colleagues to remember while they were listening to their beloved commissioner that the Bulls had “kicked their butts in court.” . . . Krause, a world-class stonewaller, is torturing the general managers inquiring about Scottie Pippen. The Bulls reportedly told the Golden State Warriors that their No. 1 pick and Chris Mullin wouldn’t be enough

More suggestions it will be a wild draft day: The Minnesota Timberwolves want to clean house--and win now, too. They’re determinedly shopping J.R. Rider and Christian Laettner, but General Manager Kevin McHale has been told to forget about long-term projects. Mike Dunleavy, once Milwaukee Buck owner Herb Kohl’s fair-haired boy, has been told to win now and is looking to trade the No. 11 pick. . . . Best gag of the Eastern finals: A Bill Clinton look-alike in Indianapolis who waved stiffly to the crowd while a friend stood next to him dressed as a secret service man, complete with sunglasses and earpiece. . . . Atlanta Hawk General Manager Pete Babcock on the undergraduates who declared: “None of these guys [is] ready. Most go to teams that really need help. They can’t meet with expectations because they aren’t ready, and it turns out to be a bad experience for everyone involved. They’re going to get big contracts, but Rasheed Wallace and Joe Smith are not ready to play in the NBA.” . . . Sacramento King Coach Garry St. Jean on Bobby Hurley: “I kind of hope he responds like Walt Williams did last year. He went home, and like with every good competitor, he wasn’t happy with his role or minutes or with me, probably. That’s OK. I understand that. I’m hoping [Hurley] comes back and says, “Hey, I’m going to show you.’ ” . . . Trouble is finishing second in a deportment contest with Rod Strickland: The Washington Bullets, determined to trade for a point guard, targeted Kenny Anderson and Strickland--until they consulted their own players, Chris Webber and Juwan Howard. The players checked around and went thumbs-down on Anderson, once known as a dedicated player, now considered a party animal.