Thursday, April 17, 1986AThe Battalion/Page 9
f OT0|
Sports
I Rockets, Spurs head West to begin NBA playoffs
Adversity primes Houston for Sacramento
OCT:
in Sbisj ^HOUSTON (AP) — The Houston Rockets had ev-
ery opportunity to wilt under the steady assault of ad-
A’s aiiij versity this season.
saHlt|( ®A lesser team might not have held on to win the
^vbe. NBA Midwest Division title and take the conference’s
l5 i>loytts I second best record into the playoffs against Sacra
mento on Thursday night.
Ad versity, if you can deal with it, will make you a
better club,” Coach Bill Fitch said. “We’ve made some
phases out of minuses.”
■—On Feb. 15, Akeem Olajuwon suffered a bruised
knlee ligament and sat out 14 games. The Rockets went
7-7 without Olajuwon but never lost their division
lea< I.
o free yB - March 15, starting point guard John Lucas
was dismissed fiom the team for the second time with
minpl-adlll- irl.ipsr.
he R ea(! B~ On March 24, Ralph Sampson missed three
\ being ffaj 1168 with a back bruise after a chilling fall during a
lillandO lf eat Boston '
hi SW0 nlH“On Api il 3, Allen Leavell, who had replaced Lu-
lU)U | ( l cas, suffered a sprained hand with a week to go in the
en( | ni( regular season, leaving Robert Reid, most effective as
( | t0l the sixth man, to fill the starting roll and further
t h e|1 weaken the bench.
>beof[!® ach setback btought predictions that the Rockets
)t . r | Ki would fade from the lead but after an early season bat-
p, ' tlelvith the Denver Nuggets, the Rockets took over the
leap for good on Dec. 26.
i Mm 1 fOuston led by as many as b 1 /.' games and although
n II Denver closed the gap to one game in mid-March, the
11 ion ihi>|.
■ the fraud
An liasd
' reject. I
empi forj
cjust tat
menullri
tit even®
Rockets took the division title by four games.
The minuses kept turning into pluses for the Rock
ets.
Olajuwon returned strongly to finish eighth in NBA
scoring at 23.5 points pet game and 1 1.5 rebounds.
Sampson charged into a dominant role while Olaju
won was sidelined. Sampson performed well at both
forward and center to average 23.1 points and 11.2 re
bounds.
The Rockets even went on a six-game winning
streak in the final two weeks of the season, although
they closed out with losses to Los Angeles and Phoe
nix.
The season-ending loss to the Suns reminded the
Rockets of a concentration lapse last season when they
lost to underdog Utah in the first round of the NBA
playoffs.
Fitch doesn’t think his team will have a similar lag.
“If I had to worry about that, I’m in trouble,” Fitch
said. “I’d have to think that last year’s Utah series
would take care of that. Or we could give them a copy
of our final game wth Phoenix and go from there.”
Fitch became so frustrated in the Phoenix game, he
pulled a Halloween mask from his pocket and wore it
while lecturing the team during a timeout.
“Fie had to wear the mask because it was a bet if we
won the championship,” Reid said. “He just picked a
strange time to put it on.”
But the team got the message.
“Sacramento can do the same thing that Utah did
last year if we are not careful,” Olajuwon said.
LA faces San Antonio feeling unrespected
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — The NBA playoffs
are about to begin, and the defending champion Los
Angeles Lakers don’t feel like they’ve gotten the re
spect that they deserve.
“The (Boston) Celtics have already, in so many
words, dethroned us,” Coach Pat Riley of the Lakers
said. “They’re already planning the coronation back in
Boston Garden. So be it.
“Teams are always blowing their horns about how
they are going to beat us. They’re knocking on the
door, we’re hearing them coming, it’s going to be their
year, all those things.”
“Last year, it was ‘Will Boston repeat?”’ starting Los
Angeles guard Byron Scott said. “Now, it’s ‘Will Bos
ton win the title?’ It’s not ‘Will the Lakers repeat?’ Ev
erything is turned around in Boston’s favor.”
“All those other teams who say they can beat us will
haved to come through us to get where they want to
go,” Earvin “Magic” Johnson of the Laker said. “Since
I’ve been here, this team has not gotten any respect.”
“I love the position we’re in. I’ve always loved being
the underdog. We could win 70 games and it would be
the same. They just don’t respect the Lakers. It don’t
matter to me, though. We’ll do our thing out on the
court.”
The Lakers, who had a 62-20 regular-season record
for the second consecutive year, face the San Antonio
Spurs at the Forum Thursday night in the opener of a
best-of-five first-round playoff series. The second
game, also at the Forum, will be played Saturday af
ternoon.
Los Angeles will be trying to become the first team
to repeat as the NBA champion since the Celtics ac
complished such a feat 17 years ago.
The Lakers had the best record in the NBA’s West
ern Conference while the Celtics, who lost to Los An
geles in six games in last spring’s Championship Series,
had a 67-15 mark, the best record in the Eastern Con
ference.
“Even though I think we may not have played our
best basketball on a consistent basis (during the regular
season), we always found a way to win,” Riley said.
“This is the trademark of a veteran team, this one in
particular.”
Los Angeles won four of its five regular-season
games against San Antonio. The Spurs had a 35-47
regular-season record, worst in their history. But that
hasn’t dampened their optimism.
“1 think we can do it,” San Antonio guard Alvin
Robertson said. “If I didn’t think that, then I shouldn’t
be playing.”
Said center Artis Gilmore of the Spurs: “I think that
San Antonio is the last team the Lakers wanted to meet
in the opening round. We play them real well. It’s
going to be a straight-up ballgame.”
Gilmore was one of many San Antonio players side
lined because of injuries during the regular season.
But the Spurs enter the playoffs as well off physically
as they’ve been in some time.
“I think the pressure is going to be on them,” San
Antonio guard Wes Matthews of the Spurs said. “They
have everything to lose. We have nothing to lose.”
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