THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

That was it?

As last hurrahs go, the Houston Rockets’ season was pretty lame but don’t worry, they’ll try it again next fall, as sure as Hakeem Olajuwon and Scottie Pippen have contracts and Charles Barkley an understanding he’ll get $14 million to make up for taking a pay cut.

Nor is there a Y2K curfew on this moldy oldie. Houston will be reprising it into the next millennium, since Olajuwon’s deal goes to 2001 and Pippen’s to 2003, when he’ll be 37, and will finally have the offense all to himself, since Olajuwon and Barkley, who’ll be 40, will--presumably--be gone.

But this is Houston, where impossible dreams came true in successive seasons, resulting in their 1994 and 1995 titles, and old guys still arise like mummies for the playoffs, so you never know.

Nevertheless, as the season wound down, it wasn’t looking good. . . .

The Rockets had won nine in a row until they went to Utah on April 1, led the Jazz by 12 in the fourth quarter . . . and lost.

They had regrouped by April 18, when they went to San Antonio where they led by 23 . . . and lost.

They still led the Lakers by a game on April 21 . . . until they were pounded at home by the Dallas Mavericks.

Two nights later, they showed up in the Sports Arena, where Barkley disappointed local writers, refusing to laugh, sneer at or discuss the Lakers. “I’m worried about the Clippers, not the Lakers,” he said.

He should have been worried about the Rockets, who sleep-walked through a 106-101 loss.

Then they went to Phoenix and lost by 24.

Then they beat the Lakers at home by 22, moving a game ahead in the race for the No. 4 seed again.

Then, when they thought the were OK again, they got thumped by the Mavericks at home again.

The next night, they lost at home to the Jazz, falling behind the Lakers, to stay, it turned out, finishing April 6-10.

That wasn’t exactly how they envisioned it, when they won the Pippen sweepstakes and got so giddy, owner Les Alexander introduced him as “a guy who can bring us a championship, many championships,” and even Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who knew his starting front line would be 36, 36 and 33 and his starting guards would be rookies, said he was “the most fortunate coach in the league.”

Even if he didn’t bring it up, Tomjanovich says he also knew the compacted season, which would wear down his old guys and allow little practice time to break in his kids, would be a special problem.

Unfortunately for him, that was the prediction that stood up.

“We had some veterans, and then we had some very young guys who didn’t know the system,” he says. “So I thought the kind of season we were going to have after the lockout was going to hurt us as much as anybody. . . .

“This was about what I expected. I told our guys, with everything so condensed, the mental part of this season was going to be the toughest part. Some teams were going to splinter because of it.

“I know as a coach, it changed my life. You didn’t have off-days to rejuvenate yourself.”

This season isn’t about rejuvenation but survival. Check the record, the Rockets are pretty good at that.

Looking for Mr. Pippen

The year after they won their first title--the one in which they faced elimination three times and won them all--they dropped to No. 6 in the West. After Tomjanovich broke up his champions, trading for aging Clyde Drexler, they were 17-18.

They were down, 2-1 to the Jazz and 3-1 to the Suns, before winning all five elimination games--one in Salt Lake City and two in Phoenix--producing a tidal wave of emotion they rode all the way to another title.

Of course, that was four years ago.

Says reserve Eddie Johnson, “If you look back on the championship years, Dream [Olajuwon] was Dream. I mean, he was younger. You’re talking about the all-time blocked-shot leader in the league and he was swatting things out of there and changing a lot of shots. As you get older, one of the things, obviously, that goes on you is that quickness and jumping ability.

“Although Dream is still one of the best centers, if not the best center in the NBA, he’s not as active at blocking shots as he used to be. So what happens now is, you have to have better lateral movement from your other four players and not allow guys to get inside the paint and get good opportunities at the basket.”

Someone must not be moving his feet. When the Rockets won their first title, they were the No. 5 defensive team. Now they’re No. 15.

In 1994, it was Hakeem and his little helpers. Then it became Hakeem and Clyde, the reunited Houston Cougars. Then Hakeem, Clyde and good-time Charlie, except Barkley and Drexler didn’t get along, which was one reason it was a good thing Drexler retired after last season’s hurrah turned into a 41-41 finish and first-round elimination.

Pippen offered new hope. Where Drexler put his head down and headed for the hoop, Pippen was used to running a team. He and Barkley were friends, on top of it.

Nobody expected what happened. In Chicago, Pippen had been the No. 2 option. Here, he was No. 3 and where Nos. 1 and 2 were iron-willed, Scottie was deferential and feeling his way.

“Playing the minutes I’m playing, I’m not involved in the offense,” he said at midseason. “It makes the game not any fun anymore. My next step is to find why this organization wanted me.”

The problem seems more psychological than with the Xs and O’s.

“I just think it’s something you can over-analyze,” Tomjanovich says. “When you look at the other [small forwards], he handles the ball a lot more. It’s not even close. . . .

“What I found was, our play calls had no relationship to his shots. I want him to be comfortable and confident and we wanted to do our part. We had one game where we called 11 plays on which he was the focal guy, but he didn’t get one shot out of them. The defense adjusted and he passed the ball. He probably did the right thing.”

Then there was the game they lost to the Mavericks, and Pippen got four points, and the man he was guarding, rookie Dirk Nowitzki, 22.

Then some of the Rockets went downtown to a club, and Pippen was pulled over for going the wrong way on one of the deserted streets, and arrested for drunk driving.

Let’s just say, it’s a work in progress.

For Whom the Clock Ticks

This, for sure, isn’t the way Barkley thought it was going to be.

Although he didn’t want to leave, he had options. Atlanta wooed him. Gary Payton and Vin Baker invited him to a weekend in Las Vegas and tried to get him to rejoin his old Phoenix coach, Paul Westphal, in Seattle.

Pippen’s arrival settled that. Barkley was as serious as he could be about this one and this was his shot. Challenged publicly by his friend and idol, Michael Jordan, who zinged him during his farewell for never dedicating himself, Barkley hired Jordan’s personal trainer, Tim Grover, who moved down from Chicago.

The Bulls’ “breakfast club,” in which Jordan, Pippen, Grover and Ron Harper worked out before practices, became Barkley, Pippen and Grover. Barkley, who sat out 43 games in his first two Rocket seasons, missed eight and, at 36, was second in the NBA in rebounds, his highest finish in the ‘90s.

Not that Barkley is conceding any sense of urgency, or anything else.

“Man, I got 20,000 points,” he said recently. “I been urgent for 15 years. You can’t just get urgent overnight. I think I’ve been doing pretty good my whole career.

“I don’t have no urgency. I don’t. Everybody always tells me stuff about myself, what I should be thinking. I find it interesting.”

OK, what is he thinking?

“I’m not thinking anything right now, but I wish people would stop telling me what I think. I’m old enough to think what I want to think and intelligent enough to think what I want to think. I don’t need people’s opinion about my life. They’re welcome to it, but don’t think it’s going to make me believe all this crap I hear.”

Barkley’s idea of a story line is one he thinks up, not one thrown out by some reporter, however obvious. He may be a natural for TV with an NBC job waiting for him, but as a basketball player, he and his franchise are running out of hurrahs.

“I think he’s come in here focused this year, more than maybe others,” Eddie Johnson says. “I feel like he realizes a couple of things.

“One, he’s not getting any younger. And two, with the addition of Scottie Pippen, this is one of his last few chances to win a championship.

“And you can add a third one to that, that he realizes he has to be the leader of this group. Because if you look at the whole scenario, Scottie has six rings. If Scottie doesn’t win another ring, it doesn’t matter. He has six. Dream has two. It doesn’t matter. So it’s up to Charles to push those guys and say to them that he’s willing to go out and do whatever he can to get a ring, and I think if he does that, then those guys will definitely follow.”

Whatever it is, it’s fun as long as it lasts. In these days of declining access, Barkley still does an impromptu 15-minute news conference before every game, while, of course, insisting he hates it.

“I look at y’all as a necessary evil,” he says. “I don’t take it as serious, whatever. I know if I play good, y’all are going to write good things about me. I know if I play bad, y’all are going to. . . . me. As long as I keep that even keel, I understand how this business works. . . .

“I never enjoyed it. It’s not that I enjoy it, because if I don’t do it--think about it, you name me any athlete that doesn’t do it, he’s going to get murdered.”

What a guy, sucking it up night after night to shoulder the game’s PR obligation. . . .

“Oh yeah, right,” says Phoenix Coach Danny Ainge, friend and former teammate. “I don’t think there’s anybody that ever played with Charles who’d buy into that.

“My impression is, he loves having a forum to talk about things other than basketball--politics, football, the baseball race. I think that was what he looked forward to the whole day, showing up at the arena when he had a new topic.”

In Houston, it ain’t over till the former Round Mound of Rebound sings. He has been criticized, fined, ordered to meet with the commissioner and otherwise left for dead, but here he is, ready to go another round, a Rocket to the end.

ALSO

CAPSULES: With parity in the East and little separation of top five contenders in West, it is anybody’s ballgame as chase for a title begins. Page 8

NBA NOTES: The Clippers abandon series at The Pond of Anaheim and will play their entire home schedule at the Staples Center next season. Page 9

STATISTICS: Page 9

LAKER REPORT: Page 10