Friday, April 24, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section R • Page 7
All-Star Sonic to play in first playoff game
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Finally, Vin Baker's playoff time has arrived.
After four seasons of frustration in Milwaukee, the All-Star power forward will appear in his first NBA playoff game tonight when his new team, the Seattle SuperSonics, faces the Minnesota Timberwolves in a first-round opener.
The best-of-five series continues here Sunday night before moving to Minneapolis for Game Three Tuesday night.
"I'll probably have to call a timeout to calm him down." coach George Karl said yesterday of his team's top scorer and leading rebounder. "He'll probably be too excited and play too hard."
Baker averaged 19.2 points and eight rebounds this season after being acquired in a three-team trade in September that sent disgruntled Shawn Kemp to Cleveland. The Sonics could not have been happier.
Baker helped Seattle win 61 games plus its third straight Pacific Division title. That more than made up for Baker's four seasons of futility in Milwaukee, where his teams compiled a 122-216 record.
This week, All-Star point guard Gary Payton and other Sonics veterans have tried to keep the pressure off Baker.
"You don't go out and try to pound his head about no playoffs." Pavton said.
Until this season, the 6-foot-11 Baker has been a big success on teams that were not successful. He averaged 28.3 points as a college senior and 27.6 as a junior, but Hartford did not make the NCAA Tournament. He was the eighth selection in the 1993 draft.
"I won't be nervous at all," Baker said of his first playoff game. "I think people will be more nervous playing against me than I'll be playing against
anybody
"But being an All-Star in Milwaukee is a lot different than being an All-Star on a division championship team." he said.
The Sonics, the No. 2 seed in the West behind Utah, are solid favorites against a Wolves team that is ailing in the middle. Seattle was 3-1 against Minnesota during the regular season.
The Wolves are in the playoffs for the second straight season. They were swept by Houston in the first round last year.
Seven-footer Stanley Roberts missed the Wolves' final six regular-season games because of a lower back strain and 6-11 Cherokee Parks sat out Minnesota's regular-season finale last weekend because of a strained left hip.
The Wolves worked out here yesterday. Afterward, coach Flip Saunders said he will start either Bill Curley or Tom Hammonds, both 6-9, at center tonight.
"Size-wise, we're a glorified CBA team." Saunders said.
He said the Wolves, with Roberts and Parks hurting, would not be able to waste fouls on Baker, who struggled at the free-throw line this season at 59 percent.
"We can't predicate our defensive philosophy on making him shoot free throws," Saunders said.
Hammonds was a member of the 1994 Denver Nuggets team that shocked Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. The Nuggets were a No. 8 seed then and the Sonics a No. 1.
"I've been emphasizing that if we come in and play physical, a lower seed can win," Hammonds said. "We proved it when I was in Denver."
The Sonics are not a good rebounding team. In fact, they were last in the league in rebounding this season.
Knicks, Heat spark tension
The Associated Press
MIAMI — This could be ugly, because it's difficult to play basketball with a clenched fist.
Playoffs to reignite rivalry between foes
When the Miami Heat and New York Knicks renew their rivalry tonight in the NBA playoffs, jaws will be flapping and elbows flying. The teams may not be the league's best, but they want to be the badest.
"This is. 'We hate your guts.' Heat point guard Tim Hardaway said. "We have to match their edge and hate them as much as they hate us. It's going to be a war."
Hard feelings date back to Heat coach Pat Riley's acrimonious departure from New York in 1995.
Then came last year's stormy seven-game playoff clash, which included a brawl in Game 5 and ensuing suspensions that probably cost the Knicks the series.
Four games between the teams this season produced a 2:2 split, seven technical fouls, three flagrant fouls and one suspension. The Knicks were robbed in the most recent meeting when officials erroneously disallowed a last-second, game-winning shot by New York's Allan Houston.
"We've had a history in our games that raises the ante a little," Riley said. "It's probably one of the best first-round series in a long time."
New York, which finished 12 games behind Atlantic Division champion Miami, will try to become the first No. 7 seed to defeat a No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
The Knicks must do it without Patrick Ewing, Coach Jeff Van Gundy said his All-Star center.
still recovering from w r i s t surgery in December, will sit out the series. With Ewing sidelined, New York appears to have an advantage
only at shooting guard, where Houston gets the edge with Voshon Lenard. The Heat counter with multiple scoring options in Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning and Jamal Mashburn, who recently returned after missing 31 games because of a fractured thumb.
"They should be a heavy favorite." Van Gundy said. "They're a No. 2 seed, they're healthy, and we're without our best player."
their games against New York during the regular season was a close, bruising battle, with neither team reaching 90 points.
"When we play physical, they don't like it," Knicks guard Chris Childs said. "They can't match up with us. If you don't want to play a physical game, play tennis."
But the Heat plan to put up a fight. Led by the sullen Mourning, they can match the Knicks scowl for scowl and answer each push with a shove.
"When you play a team like the Knicks, you can't be soft," Heat forward P.J. Brown said.
Brown sparked the brawl in Game 5 last year when he tossed guard Charlie Ward into a row of photographers. The memory of Ward cartwheeling off the court fuels anticipation for the combustible matchup beginning today.
"I don't think it'll be ugly," Brown said. "I think it'll be real smooth and cool."
Lakers defend coach's performance
The Associated Press
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Criticism seems to follow Los Angeles Lakers coach Del Harris everywhere, a circumstance he finds puzzling.
Maybe it is because, as good friend Rick Majerus said he believes, Harris has the toughest job in basketball.
Maybe it is because he lacks the championships of a Phil Jackson, the dynamism of a Pat Riley or the charisma of a Rick Pitino.
Or maybe it is because he does not have the reputation of a Chuck Daly or the playing history of a Larry Bird.
He certainly does not command the lofty salary of any of those five coaches.
Maybe it is just simply a matter of high expectations for a team that won five NBA titles in the 1980s.
When the Lakers concluded a 3-3 road trip seven weeks ago, it was reported that Harris, a constant target on radio talk shows, was on the verge of being fired.
"I don't even know what the criticism is," he said. "What am I going to say?"
Harris just does not get it.
The Lakers have improved in each of the four years under Harris.
Harris said.
"I feel comfortable in saying if Shaquille (O'Neal) had played 80 games, like Michael Jordan, Karl Malone and Gary Payton did, we would have had the best record in the league."
Two more victories and the youthful Lakers (61-21), who face Tonight on tonight in the opener of a first-round playoff, would
have accomplished the feat.
Having won 22 of their final 25 games, the Lakers are one of the NBA's hottest teams entering the playoffs. Yet some people would like to see him gone.
"It's hard for me to talk about myself." the 60-year-old coach said. "Coaches around the country, my peers in the NBA, have known about me through my books, clinic talks, as one of the guys who knows about the game of basketball. That's what really matters to me as opposed to some unemployed guy who calls in to some radio talk show to some guy who's never coached a game and probably never plowed the game, either."
Harris was surprised by the report of his imminent dismissal. He said Lakers owner Jerry Buss told him the story was ridiculous.
General managed Mitch Kupchak said, "The story was not true. And the criticism does not make sense to me. To win 60 games is incredible considering our youth, considering our injuries."
Harris said he thought this was the best coaching job he had done.
"Nobody's ever won a championship with this
young a group," he said. "Our development over the last six weeks gives us hope that we might be able to do that."
Asked if he was concerned about his future, Harris said, "I'm not fighting for a job, all I'm trying to do is win the next game. The teams that have stayed together with their players and coaches are the teams to beat right now. We have the ability to keep a nucleus here for a long time."
Majerus, who coached Utah to the NCAA championship game last month, said Harris had been an important part of his life.
"There might be a better coach and a better guy in this world, but I know there's not a better guy who coaches, not a better father, not a better caring person for his players," said Majerus, an assistant coach with Harris for the Milwaukee Bucks 11 years ago. "The only bad thing I can say about Del is that he might be too good a person. He never lashes out."
All-Star Lakers guard Eddie Jones agreed.
"Del's one of those coaches who's quiet, soft-spoken, doesn't really get wild," Jones said. "He tries to do everything with a cool head. All this stuff he's been through in the last six weeks, it's been crazy."
Reserve forward Corie Blount calls Harris one of the NBA's best coaches.
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