Holton Reporting a Robbery in Progress

Michael Holton, the former Pasadena High and UCLA guard who is now the basketball coach at the University of Portland, played sparingly in his six seasons in the NBA.

His claim to fame as a pro may have come in 1986 when the Chicago Bulls signed him to a 10-day contract late in the season and assigned him to guard Michael Jordan in practice.

Jordan then went out and scored 63 points in a playoff game -- still an NBA playoff record -- against the Boston Celtics. (The Celtics, however, won the game in double overtime, won the series, and beat Houston in the NBA Finals.)

So how does Holton analyze his NBA career?

“When I get my first NBA pension check,” he told The Times’ Sam Farmer, “I’m going to wear a mask, because with my career, that’s stealing money.”

Trivia time: The Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons in Game 7 of the 1988 NBA Finals. How many Game 7s have there been in the Finals since?

Who needs scorers: When the Lakers and Pistons played in the 1988 and ’89 Finals, neither team had a player who finished in the top 10 in scoring during the regular season. This year, Kobe Bryant is the only Laker or Piston among the top 10 scorers. His 24.0 points-per-game average was fourth best.

A Rush to judgment: In Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, after Shaquille O’Neal was whistled for his fifth foul, referee Ed Rush could be heard on ESPN radio asking how many fouls Shaq had.

It appeared Rush was concerned about O’Neal’s fouling out.

Then again, maybe not. Wrote Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post: “It was all a misunderstanding. Rush was actually asking how many miles it was to the nearest Radio Shack.”

Blowout promotion: At 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, radio station XTRA began taking calls to give away two tickets to the NBA Finals.

The station received 6,000 calls in less than five minutes and blew out a telephone company grid.

Telephone company officials sent an e-mail to the station, essentially saying, “Let us know in advance next time.”

Volley girls: The Lakers have Kobe and Shaq, but when it comes to a dominating duo, it is hard to beat beach volleyball’s Kerri Walsh and Misty May.

In the Manhattan Beach Open today, they will be going after their 16th consecutive tournament title. They have won 88 consecutive matches.

Bruce Feldman of ESPN the Magazine notes that the pair practices in Playa del Rey, just outside Laker Coach Phil Jackson’s oceanfront porch.

Wrote Feldman: “Good morning, Coach. Whack!”

Trivia answer: One, in 1994, when the Houston Rockets beat the New York Knicks.

And finally: NBA Commissioner David Stern, asked by Bob Costas on HBO about the conspiracy theory regarding the Lakers making it to the Finals, made it clear he would never fix a game. “We routinely avoid committing felonies,” Stern said.

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.