Comets Building WNBA Dynasty : Pro basketball: Houston feels right at home and wins third consecutive championship, 59-47.

There is one ray of hope for WNBA followers already tired of the Houston Comets winning the championship every year.

Compaq Center will most likely be demolished within the next few years.

Leslie L. Alexander, owner of the Comets and the NBA’s Houston Rockets, is close to cutting a deal with the city for a new downtown arena, two blocks from where the city’s new baseball park is being constructed.

But for the near term, Compaq Center will remain the league’s house of horrors, a place that will fuel the Comets’ dynasty into the new century.

The Comets, lifted by another capacity crowd of 16,285, on Sunday beat the New York Liberty, 59-47, to win their third consecutive championship.

Finishing their crusade on behalf of Kim Perrot, Houston’s players and coaches all insisted their former point guard, who died of cancer last month, really was on the court Sunday afternoon, scolding and cheering her team.

Certainly she was there in the hearts of most of the crowd. Some fans displayed signs that read: “Not in Kim’s House” and “How’s the View From Up There, Kim?”

Houston Coach Van Chancellor said it for his team afterward.

“Kim Perrot is still on this team,” he said.

“I can’t say enough about my team. To go through all we’ve been through, with Cynthia [Cooper] losing her Mom, with Sheryl’s [Swoopes] personal problems [a divorce] and then losing Kim on top of all that . . . and then this team goes out there today and plays the greatest defensive game I ever saw.

“Hey, we gave up 47 points in a championship game! Swoopes’ defense on Crystal Robinson today was outstanding.”

Robinson, the three-point markswoman from the ABL, scored 21 points Saturday when New York beat Houston, 68-67, on Teresa Weatherspoon’s game-winning 52-foot shot at the buzzer.

But Sunday, with Swoopes dogging her every step, Robinson scored only five points, making only two of 10 shots.

As for the Comet offense, who else but Cooper?

On a day when the winners shot 28.8% and the losers 30.9%, Cooper finished with a game-high 24 points. She made 13 of 15 free throws.

And it was Cooper who helped turn a a 28-25 lead with two minutes left in the first half into a 38-27 advantage four-and-a-half minutes into the second half.

The Liberty never threatened after that. Houston had a 48-31 lead with 4:21 to go after Tina Thompson scored twice within 45 seconds.

For Cooper, who was named the most valuable player of the series, it was a personal conquest as well as another team championship. Hard times have dogged her the last nine months, and it seemed Sunday it was finally all behind her.

Consider:

* In December, her Houston house burned down. No one was injured.

* In early February, she involved in a serious auto accident, but was unhurt.

* Three days later, her mother, Mary Cobbs, died of cancer.

* On Aug. 19, close friend Perrot died after her battle with cancer.

Cooper, 36, has been been named to her third U.S. Olympic team. It’s an all-WNBA team that will have played, through the Sydney Olympics, 17 consecutive months of basketball dating back to last May’s WNBA training camps.

“Yes, I need a break,” she said, referring to a pre-Olympic tournament beginning in San Diego Thursday.

“I really do want to play in the Olympics, but after all that’s happened, how hard it’s been for me to stay motivated and focused . . . I hope they understand if I ask for a break.”

Cooper had major support Sunday from 6-foot-2 reserve Tammy Jackson, who grabbed 11 rebounds.

And yes, Weatherspoon made another moonshot. It came at the final horn again, and someone stepped it off at 36 feet.

Liberty Coach Richie Adubato, fined $1,500 for knocking the officiating after Thursday’s opener in New York, was asked Sunday about Houston being called for 15 fouls and the Liberty 28. New York made eight of nine free throws, Houston 27 of 32.

“I must be teaching the wrong technique on how to get fouled,” he said. “I’m going to study up on that in the off-season.”

WNBA Notes

WNBA President Val Ackerman said she envisions a best-of-three format for all rounds of the 2000 playoffs. She also said she hopes the league can hold its expansion draft by the end of 1999 to help stock next summer’s four new teams. And she said she hoped a decision on the proposed Jerry Buss-to-Philip Anschutz transfer of the Sparks will be made within a month. . . . Houston Coach Van Chancellor said UCLA senior center Maylana Martin will be a “top three” pick in the league’s spring college draft. Chancellor also said the coaching rumor mill has Spark assistant Michael Cooper as the leading candidate for the Miami expansion job.