Reality Sets In as Suns’ Season Fades

OK, nurse, you can wheel ‘em out of here now.

Having had their moment in this series, the Phoenix Suns dreamed their dreams and trotted out their complaints, whinnying about the respect the Lakers weren’t giving them and the play or two that kept this from being a 2-2 series or even a 3-1 Suns’ lead.

But reality and the Lakers were waiting when they walked out on the floor at Staples Center Tuesday night, still a bunch of little banged-up guys, who would have been underdogs had they been healthy, who went belly up and were carried into their long-overdue rehabilitations and/or vacations.

“I feel bad for my guys,” said downcast Sun Coach Scott Skiles. “They gave me everything they had for the whole year. For it to end on a night like this when I don’t think the Lakers were great or anything--we just couldn’t make a shot.

“It’s very tough. It’s a sad locker room right now.”

Not that the Lakers got out of the second round, unscathed, either.

Before this series, they still were thought to be the big dogs of this postseason, but by the time it ended, the conventional wisdom tilted toward Portland.

Phil Jackson, who has been lamenting the strength of his postseason schedule, said he wasn’t surprised. Not that these Lakers reminded him of his Bulls teams that went 15-2 in the 1991 playoffs and 15-3 in 1996.

“That’s true,” Jackson said. “We did. We were much more mature as a basketball club then this one, though. That takes some time.”

The Lakers will have three days off before opening the Western Conference finals against the Portland Trail Blazers, but what Jackson was talking about may take more time than that.

The Suns had spent two days bristling about the gauntlet that Ron Harper dropped on their sneakers after Game 4, when he announced the Lakers would “beat the . . . out of them. Point blank.”

“That’s good,” said the normally unflappable Jason Kidd. “We’ll see if he’s right.”

“If you’re going to take a loss, take it like a man,” Luc Longley said. “If we plan on kicking someone’s butt, do it on the court. Don’t advertise it.”

The Suns circulated a quote from Cicero (the philosopher, not the city in Illinois) in their locker room: “The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.” They talked about the need to withstand the assault the Lakers were sure to hit them with early in Game 5.

Then they went out and expired.

They scored 14 points in the first quarter, missing 14 of 20 shots.

Little did they know this would turn out to be the highlight of their half. They only scored nine points in the second quarter, missing 15 of 17.

If one play could capture it, it was Corie Blount, wide open underneath the basket, going up and dunking one into the front rim. He got the rebound, but before he could go back up Robert Horry bear-hugged him and, since the Lakers had a foul to give, the Suns had to take the ball out on the side.

The team that scored 71 points in the first half of Game 4, had just come back with 23 in the first half of Game 5.

Kidd, who had announced, “I’m back! It’s me!” after recording his Game 4 triple-double, 22 points, 16 assists and 10 rebounds, got a triple-single, eight points, two assists and seven rebounds and missed 10 of his 13 shots.

Hardaway shot one for nine, Cliff Robinson three for 11, Shawn Marion two for 11 and Longley two for eight.

So much for all their indignation and the Lakers’ punctured aura.

“Until they’ve been beaten in a seven-game series,” said Kevin Johnson before the game, “all that other stuff is a bunch of hogwash.

“I mean, what Sacramento did [taking the Lakers to a Game 5], you can say gave us confidence because we know they can be beaten. But it’s a matter of who wins that series. And they beat Sacramento and if they knock us off, L.A.’s going to say, ‘We’re a young team, we’re just getting better, these are good learning experiences for us.’

“And those of us who do, as you say, puncture them a little bit, we don’t get any moral victories for that. Doesn’t really count.”

So Harper’s prediction came true, after all. As Cicero also could have told the Suns, the greater the difficulty, the longer the odds, and theirs just ran out.

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Half Bad

The fewest points scored by one team in a half of an NBA playoff game since the 24-second shot clock was introduced for the 1954-55 season:

* 23--Phoenix at Lakers, first half, May 16, 2000

* 23--Utah at Chicago, second half, June 7, 1998

* 24--Portland at Utah, first half, May 5, 1996

* 25--Detroit at Atlanta, second half, May 19, 1999

* 25--Portland vs. San Antonio, second half, June 4, 1999

* 27--Philadelphia vs. Boston, second half, May 21, 1982

* 27--Philadelphia at Orlando, first half, May 11, 1999

* 28--Lakers at Milwaukee, first half, April 7, 1974

* 28--San Antonio vs. Portland, second half, May 7, 1993