Amid Thrills and Spills of Playoffs, There Is This Guy Named Jordan

Well, that was entertainment, wasn’t it?

At one point last week, it looked as if the Lakers could stroll to the finals, past the fallen Jazz and SuperSonics, needing only to mop up the Timberwolves, Spurs or Rockets, against whom they had gone 4-0, 4-0 and 3-1, respectively.

That wasn’t how it turned out, but this was still a first round to remember, even if many people would rather not.

To recap:

LAKERS-TRAIL BLAZERS

Talk about your fun bunch, how ‘bout them Trail Blazers?

Just when you want to write the Lakers off as hopelessly young, inexperienced, etc., here come The Real Blazermaniacs to show what “clueless” means these days.

Isaiah Rider announces he’s better than Eddie Jones, obviously discounting the impact of seven suspensions, one fourth-quarter desertion and a dozen flip-outs at fans, coaches, et al. The Trail Blazers cry about the disparity in fouls, while using three centers to visit 10-15 upon Shaquille O’Neal nightly. Arvydas Sabonis, the heady Trail Blazer, or at least the one with the largest head, forgets he’s supposed to be hacking Shaq and takes himself out of Game 2 by hitting everyone in a gold suit who comes near him (of his first four fouls, two are against Jones and one is against Derek Fisher; the other is a bad call when Shaq, backing in, elbows him in the jaw.)

Showing there was a difference, the Lakers polished them off in four, but not before Nick Van Exel started giving Del Harris Those Looks again.

By now, it should be plain this tug-of-war will never go away, lurking beneath the surface, just waiting for bad times to kick it back into the headlines. Not that it’s all-important around here, but Delmer is paid to coach and Nick to play. Van Exel won’t rejoin the starting lineup where he belongs--it’s a leadership position, after all--presumably because Harris wants him to. This would be mutiny on a ship at sea, but in the NBA it’s just the ‘90s.

It’s a reminder of who the Lakers are. It’s OK to have a lot of young players. This is called a Youth Movement and usually leads to better times. Of course, expecting to win titles while the youths grow up (see: Bulls in the ‘80s) is ambitious, presumptuous or Looney Tunes.

That’s where the organization is now, riding its frisky tigers, with its independent point guard and impetuous Golden Child.

JAZZ-ROCKETS

Beware of swooning Rockets.

Experts at lying in the weeds, they won a title in ’94 as a No. 2-seeded team, defended it successfully as a No. 6 and started this spring as a No. 8, having ducked under the Timberwolves with a 4-9 finish. A Minnesota official, suspecting design in the nose dive, said the Rockets “got exactly the matchup they wanted.”

At No. 7, the Rockets would have played the SuperSonics, who have handled them for years. But Houston had three big bodies--Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Willis, Charles Barkley--to throw against Karl Malone and took a 2-1 lead, while chopping Mailman’s 27-point average to 24 and his shooting from 53% to 41%.

Jerry Sloan growled his “big men”--i.e., whipping boy Greg Ostertag--weren’t playing big, after Sloan let him go one-on-one with Olajuwon down the stretch of Game 3, with predictable results.

Finally, 12 points down in Game 4, Sloan, an old-fashioned guy, discovered a new-fangled trick, double-teaming. Olajuwon ran out of space and fuel and the Jazz turned the Western world right side up again with a 57-29 second half.

SUPERSONICS-TIMBERWOLVES

Just what George Karl needed at this tender time in his tenure, fate throwing a monkey wrench into his spring.

The SuperSpastics, er, Sonics, accustomed to being the smaller, more athletic team, were confounded when Minnesota’s Flip Saunders came back from a Game 1 pounding with a three-guard lineup (his centers were hurt) and started beating them at their own trapping-rotating game.

Karl had a 48-hour nightmare between Games 3 and 4 in the Twin Cities, contemplating his own exit and the demise of the team he loves. Voila! They won Game 4 to turn it around.

SPURS-SUNS

Here’s one you could see coming. Late in the season, the Spurs finally started standing up to good teams as Tim Duncan began supplanting David Robinson as boss Spur.

Otherwise astute Danny Ainge played Duncan straight up and lost Game 1 at home. Ainge became a big fan for the rest of the series, all four games of it.

“I think he’s more versatile [than Robinson],” Ainge says. “He’s more effective on both ends of the court. I’m not trying to pick on David. It’s just that Duncan is as good of a young player as I’ve ever seen. Ever.”

BULLS-NETS

Michael Jordan had a 10-for-26 game and the Bulls almost lost. Jordan played better and they won routinely. Jordan played great and they closed out the Nets in three games, giving the old guys the all-important week off. Nothing we haven’t seen before.

PACERS-CAVALIERS

Get the drift? The Eastern series are about as interesting as male mud wrestling, which they resemble.

The Cavaliers went down hard but they went, meaning in their last four playoff appearances, they’re 0-3, 1-3, 0-3, 1-3. Young is still young, even if Mike Fratello makes them play like they’re old.

HEAT-KNICKS

Now here was a real affront to the game, featuring the usual graceless basketball and, of course, more of the old ultra-violence.

I thought David Stern overreacted after last season’s scrum, suspending five Knicks, including Patrick Ewing, who merely strolled a few feet off the bench, costing them the series. Didn’t turn out to be much of a deterrent, did it? What’s it going to take with these rockheads, suspending everyone for life? What a great idea! No more Heat-Knicks ever!

HORNETS-HAWKS

Another thriller. The highlight was off the court, where free-agent-to-be Matt Geiger said he was injured in what Hornet officials took as a David Falk-inspired plot to deliver him healthy to the Celtics.

“I think he better be half-dead if he’s not going to try,” Coach Dave Cowens said.

Alive if not useful, Geiger was fined for visiting the stadium club at halftime of Game 1 and was spotted eating a candy bar on the bench in Game 4. However, he took the classy route, refusing to respond to Cowens. Well, almost.

“I’m not here to lower myself to making comments back to what he says,” Geiger said. “. . . My friends and my family, the people that I really care about, they know I’m hurt and that’s all I care about. I give 110% every night and if I can’t, then I’m not going to be out there risking my career and the chance of tearing my hamstring for no Dave Cowens. He’s not worth it to me.”

He meant it as a denial, anyway.

FACES AND FIGURES

Never mind: Phil Jackson’s latest broadside at Chicago General Manager Jerry Krause makes it clear he won’t be back. However, on the bright side, Jordan’s non-negotiable demand just turned negotiable: “I can choose to take a step back and say, ‘Hey, if I really want to play I can play for whoever they want to bring in. Or I can choose to say I don’t want to play for whoever they bring in.” . . . Glad to see he’s taking the loss of his beloved mentor so well. . . . Final update on Boston Coach Rick Pitino’s promise to give Pervis Ellison a percentage of his Derby horse, Halory Hunter, if Ellis played all 82 games: Pervis missed by only 49. . . . Comment: Of course, longtime Pitino watchers know Ricky was just hoping to make Rarely in Service Pervis look good so he could dump the last three years and $9 million of his contract. . . . The Suns, bowing out in the first round for the third year in a row, aren’t enchanted at the idea of paying $8 million to $10 million a year for a center like Ike Austin, Vlade Divac or Rik Smits. “We’ve got to match up with all of those good, young teams and players,” Ainge says. “And we want to do that, obviously. But how many of those guys are out there? There’s only one Tim Duncan and there’s only one Shaq. What do you do? It’s the same thing with every franchise. That’s why those guys are so special when you get them. I mean, Orlando was a special team there for a while and now they’re not. It’s pretty simple to see why. San Antonio is in a similar situation with David and Tim. If you ever let a guy like that get away, you will never recover.” . . . Knick Coach Jeff Van Gundy, whose brother, Stan, is a Miami assistant, asked whom his parents favor: “I know they’re going to be rooting for me. I was always more likable than he was. I also can get fired quicker than he can.”