MISFIRING ROCKET

By TIM KAWAKAMI

May 13, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Geez, the poor guy goes through this every time Michael Jordan retires, doesn’t he?

And that’s poor, in a figurative sense, since Scottie Pippen signed a $14 million- a-year deal with the Houston Rockets in January, signed precisely to excel at this time of year, in these types of series.

The Rockets bought him, then brought him in, and only two postseason games into his Houston tenure, the Rocket- Laker first-round series is reviving the Pippen theorem:

He’s an incredible, prototype player and was an integral part of the Chicago Bull dynasty, but in the biggest moments, if you ask too much of Scottie Pippen, there is playoff hell to pay.

Beat Kobe Bryant off the dribble at the end of a tight game!

Carry the ballhandling load for 40 minutes because your rookie guards can’t do it!

Make a basket in the biggest game of the season!

Win a title without Michael Jordan!

No, none of that is likely to happen very soon.

Which doesn’t make him a bad player, only an easy target, someone who, at 33, has Hall of Fame credentials but not the fire to avoid being completely outplayed by the 20-year-old Bryant.

“I don’t think anybody should be focusing on Scottie,” said center Hakeem Olajuwon, who has two championship rings. “And if they do, we cannot help that. We can’t control that.

“Scottie’s experienced. He’s a veteran. He has been under criticism before. Criticism’s nothing new to him.

“As a professional, that’s part of the business and just move on. . . . We are a team. We win together and lose together.”

Of course, this time around Pippen didn’t refuse to report back into the game in the final seconds, as he did in a 1994 Chicago playoff game against the New York Knicks to protest the play being called for Toni Kukoc.

That was Pippen’s only previous trip to the NBA postseason without Jordan, who was in his first retirement at the time.

In an early version of the Jordan-Pippen Bull team, Pippen skipped a game against the rumbling Detroit Pistons complaining of severe headaches, and the Bulls eventually lost the series.

Six NBA championships into his career, and it’s still easy to start rippin’ Pippen at playoff time if there isn’t a tongue-wagging cohort alongside, scoring a million points, demanding to take all the huge shots, and letting Pippen be his creative, supplementary self.

Pippen is 10th all-time in postseason assists, 11th in playoff points, and has played in 180 playoff games, more than any other active player.

“I’ve never been in this situation before,” Pippen said before the Rockets’ practice at Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday, but, even if he was referring to the team’s dire situation, of course, he has.

Pippen had a solid Game 1 (a quiet, but near-triple-double), but had the ball knocked away by Bryant in the final 10 seconds, helping the Lakers to victory.

Pippen had a woeful Game 2, missing all seven of his shots in 37 sluggish minutes, neither controlling the tempo nor doing anything positive as Bryant basically erased him from the game.

With the series moving to Houston tonight, the Rockets must sweep the next three games or be eliminated.

On Wednesday, Pippen accepted much of the responsibility for the Rockets’ troubles and said the problem was that he hasn’t been asserting himself.

“I have to give the team a little bit more offense,” said Pippen, averaging 8.5 points in the series. “I have to be more aggressive offensively. I don’t want to force shots, but it may come down to that.

“I have to be a little bit more aggressive and look to create some opportunities for myself.”

Pippen, used to Chicago’s flowing “Triangle” offense, has suffered in Houston’s dump-it-in, stand-around scheme, but seemed to find a stride late in the season.

Coach Rudy Tomjanovich and Charles Barkley agreed with Olajuwon: Too much analysis of Pippen--who was supposed to assist the other future Hall of Famers, not dominate games--will only make things worse.

Barkley scolded reporters after Game 2 for persisting in prodding about Pippen’s problems and did not wish to elaborate Wednesday.

“We need more from everybody on the team,” Barkley said when asked about Pippen.

Not particularly more from Pippen? “We need more from everybody on the team. It’s a team game.”

Tomjanovich said he hadn’t studied the game tapes for individual patterns but had searched only for team-wide solutions.

But he also was quick to say that it would be unfair to criticize or over-analyze only Pippen’s playoff performance.

“I don’t think you can put it on one person,” Tomjanovich said. “I’m not putting it on him at all.

“Just collectively, we’ve got to get into our game. And when we’re into our game, we have balance out there.”

Pippen said in the first two games, he mainly concentrated on bringing the ball up--rookies Cuttino Mobley and Michael Dickerson have been shaky in the series--fending off Bryant’s in-your-face defense, and getting the ball to others to score.

With the Lakers scoring almost every time, Pippen, who prefers a fast-paced game, was locked into a half-court tempo and locked up by Bryant.

“I know last night was not the type of game that I would like to finish with,” Pippen said. “I came out, I tried to be aggressive and get us going early.

“But when you’re taking the ball out of the basket every time down court, it’s hard to make a run at a team.”

Bryant has determinedly stayed with Pippen at all times, forcing Pippen to work on the dribble, and appearing to tire Pippen out by the second half.

“He’s making me have to work to bring the ball and get into our set,” Pippen said. “I like to get the ball where I can catch the ball and be a threat, being able to drive, shoot or pass.

“Right now, [Bryant’s] got me in the position where I bring the ball down. He knows there’s only a couple things I can do. I can’t drive the ball, because he’s pressuring me so far out that he’s running me into his help defense.”

Pippen in ’99

Averages by month and in postseason:

POINTS: 8.5

Career average*: 18.0

ASSISTS: 8.5

Career average*: 5.3

REBOUNDS: 8.5

Career average*: 6.8

Total: 52 games (February, 14; March, 17; April, 16; May, 3; Playoffs, 2)

* Regular-season average. Does not include 1999 statistics

LAKERS vs. HOUSTON

L.A. leads best-of-five series, 2-0