Odds Are Lakers Have Met Match

Well, I see where the Lakers are being double-teamed to death again. It comes as no surprise to this writer. They are being mugged by the Odd Couple.

You know, throughout history, efficiency comes in tandems. There have been dynamic duos all through the ages. Think about it. Laurel and Hardy, Martin and Lewis, George Burns and Gracie Allen. The theater had Lunt and Fontanne, the old West the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Sports is no exception. You had Ruth and Gehrig, Montana and Rice, Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. You didn’t need much more.

But no one in basketball had a duet much better than the Utah Jazz’s Odd Couple, Karl Malone and John Stockton. Death and Taxes.

It’s funny because you look at Stockton and you can tell right away he’s not a basketball player, much less one of the best who ever played. He’s too little, too light, too--well, not slow, exactly, but not a 4.3 sprinter either. He is devilishly quick, like a pickpocket at a racetrack, but you’d think he’d get crushed to death in that forest of big men that is the NBA today.

Malone fits the silhouette of the league better, Godzilla in shorts. He is not a human skyscraper like an Abdul-Jabbar or a Chamberlain, but he is 6 feet 9, 255 pounds, and doesn’t have to look up to too many people on this planet.

When this oddly matched pair first came to the Utah Jazz, it was to a franchise that was hard put to play .500 basketball and even had seasons like 25-52 and 24-58. The Jazz steadily got better under the Odd Couple till its seasons ran to 64-18 in 1997 and 62-20 this season. It got to the NBA finals last year but lost to Michael Jordan and friends there. What else is new?

Malone had star written all over him after one NBA season and came to be known as “The Mailman.”

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But Stockton took a little getting used to. He got drafted out of Gonzaga, with 15 players getting picked ahead of him.

He couldn’t even crack the starting lineup. He spent 2 1/2 seasons on the bench behind Rickey Green. I guess the Jazz was waiting to see if he would grow.

But, when they put him on the floor--all 6 feet 1 inches of him--good things began to happen. Pretty soon he was floating all over the floor and, remarkably enough, he usually had the ball with him.

Pretty soon, the league noted another phenomenon. He and Malone worked together like a great ballroom dance team, a Veloz and Yolanda. They were in sync. Each seemed to know where the other one was at all times, almost as if they were connected by radar. In fact, they couldn’t have played better if they were joined at the hip.

Stockton could find an open man in a New Year’s Eve mob scene in Times Square. His job was to go get the ball, dig it out of the corners like a hockey defenseman retrieving a puck and then get it to a scorer, usually Malone.

Not that he couldn’t score himself. You left Stockton open at your peril. He had 1,400 points in his good seasons, usually averaging about 17 a game.

He was an accomplished thief. It was said around the league he could steal a pork chop from a hungry lion and he holds the all-time steals record with 2,620. More than one guy felt like calling the cops.

He led the NBA nine consecutive seasons in assists, and is the all-time assists leader.

But even this is a reflection of the chemistry between him and the Postmaster General (Mailman is not enough for Malone). Malone has 27,782 points, fourth behind Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain and Jordan on the all-time list. No one knows how many of those resulted from Stockton’s 12,713 assists.

We know how whales communicate, dolphins, but no one has a clear idea how basketball’s Odd Couple does it, least of all the duo themselves. It isn’t as if one sings tenor and the other alto but the harmony is unquestionably there. “We always know where the other one is, “ Malone said at the Forum on Friday night after the Jazz had done in the Lakers, 109-98, in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals.

“It’s a rhythm,” suggested Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan. “It’s John Elway knowing where his receivers will be.”

It’s not exactly alchemy, but Stockton, typically, feels his role is overplayed. “It’s because he [Malone] is a very special guy,” Stockton insisted as he had his leg treated after Friday’s game. “I’ve been very fortunate to have benefited from playing with a guy with his talents. “

Is he saying it’s not a marriage made in heaven, that anybody would do in getting the ball to Malone, that the mail would be delivered no matter who got the stamp to him?

“He’s a great, great player. I feel lucky to be paired with him. “

Sloan feels the team is lucky to have Stockton too. “No one mentions the screens he sets, the control he brings to the game, the way it doesn’t matter to him how far behind we get, he still works to win, the work ethic both he and Karl bring to the game. “

The game Friday night illustrated a basic difference between the two playoff teams. The Lakers would painstakingly set up a basket like a guy laying brick (and sometimes by throwing up a few of them) and they would chew up minutes on the clock scoring. Then, the Jazz, led by Stockton and its Mailman would flash downcourt for a quick, easy basket.

So, all Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers have to do now is win four in a row. Hard to do when you’ve got to combat two guys in constant telepathic communication.