Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!
Suns guard Jeff Hornacek goes between Michael Cooper and Byron Scott of the Lakers during the 1990 Playoffs. |
Six times the Suns and Lakers had met in the playoffs and six times the Suns had been eliminated. Further, the Suns had lost their last 21 games in the Forum and coach Cotton Fitzsimmons had lost his last 37!
But first things first. With Tom Chambers scoring 32 points, Mark West pulling down 11 rebounds, Eddie Johnson hitting a huge shot and Kevin Johnson hitting the winning shot in the closing seconds of Game 5 in Salt Lake, the Suns came from 10 points down in the fourth period to beat the Jazz 104-102.
With the easy part out of the way, Cotton and his club headed for Los Angeles and another date with the doom that had been their destiny there so many times. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was gone, but Magic Johnson was still very much there, as were James Worthy, Byron Scott, Michael Cooper, Mychal Thompson, Vlade Divac and A.C. Green. And that group had fashioned a league-best 63-19 record. And just a year earlier, the Lakers had swept the 55-27 Suns in the Western Conference Finals. And, to put it mildly, they were very, very confident.
There was, in short, no indication the Suns were about to take one of the most significant steps in their history. Well, maybe SOME indication.
"Although they had swept us the year before," said Cotton, " every game had been very close and what it came down to was that Magic wouldn't let us win. Whatever it took, be it a shot or a pass or a rebound, he made the plays that beat us. So I told our players we COULD win. But of course, you can talk win all you want, but until you do win it's just talk."
To make matters worse, disaster struck even before Game 1 started. About two hours before. But let Cotton relive that demoralizing calamity in his own words: "I was one of the first coaches that didn't wear his suit to the arena," he said. "I would wear casual clothes and change while the teams were warming up. But as I started changing it flashed through my mind my shirt was back on the bed in my hotel room."
Talk about DISASTER! What to do?
"Trainer Joe Proski had one of his 'gimmie' shirts," said Cotton. "You know Joe never bought a shirt and this one had golf stuff written on it. Fortunately it was a white shirt. So there I was with a golf shirt and a tie under my suit coat and the collar sticking up, and everybody making fun of my outfit."
But as it turned out, that was just about the last thing that would go wrong for the Suns that night as Tom Chambers scored 26 points, Mark West had 16 rebounds and the Suns hung on for a 104-102 victory. All the streaks were dead. Long live the new streak. But Cotton played it cool. Or at least as cool as a fashion plate who had to wear a $20 golf shirt under his $600 suit could keep his cool.
Asked what ending his personal 37-game losing streak in the Forum meant to him, he said, "Nothing. A lot of the guys who played in those games are probably dead now." He then pointed out the victory wasn't really all THAT big an upset. "A lot of games we played here the last couple of years could have gone our way, but the ball always bounced the Lakers' way," he said. "Tonight it finally bounced OUR way."
But because Earwin Johnson wasn't known as Magic for nothing, it almost didn't. With four seconds left and the Suns three points ahead, Magic made the first of two free throws. He then deliberately missed the second, and did it so successfully and with such zing that for an agonizing split second the ball was free in the lane - sort of like a hockey puck in front of an open net. And given the history of the two teams, one could almost see a Laker putting it in, getting fouled, and converting for a 105-104 victory.
Not this time! This time, the Suns put a body on Orlando Woolridge, and Kevin Johnson, who earlier had come up with a crucial defensive play against Worthy, pounced on the ball to preserve one of the sweetest victories in franchise history, not to mention Cotton history.
West, the unsung, unnoticed and much underappreciated Suns' center, was a huge factor in the victory, with 24 points, 10 offensive rebounds and 7 blocked shots in 47 minutes. He had five of his blocks in the first half, including one message-sending rejection after Magic had put one of his patented 360-degree moves on his man. And just as significant as his numbers was the help he gave Dan Majerle in shutting down Magic in the fourth period.
Magic traditionally owned the last 12 minutes, but with Majerle hounding him out front and West sealing off the paint, the Hall of Famer went 1-for-5 in the period, with no assists.
"Naturally I had to wear Joe's shirt the next game," said Cotton. "But it turned out it wasn't the shirt, and they kicked us pretty good."
They certainly did. Jeff Hornacek had 18 points for the Suns, but Worthy had 27 for the Lakers and A.C. Green added 13 rebounds in a 124-100 Laker romp.
"I've always thought of the next two games in Phoenix as two of the most important ones in the team's history," said Cotton. "Some people were saying the win in Game 1 was a fluke, and the fact we got blown out in Game 2 proved the Lakers still had our number. So basically, we had to win both games in the Coliseum."
And they not only won, but won rather convincingly as Chambers scored 34 points in a 117-103 victory in Game 3. Game 4 was a bit closer than the 114-101 final score would indicate, but KJ's 30 points and West's 15 rebounds helped offset a 43-point night by Magic and the Suns took a 3-1 lead back to the Forum.
The Suns had been there and done that before, of course. On their very first trip to the playoffs, in fact. That was in Year Two of their existence when they took a 3-1 lead against Wilt, West, Baylor, et al. back to the Forum, only to crumble. But that Suns' team had been clearly overmatched. This one clearly wasn't.
And in Game 5 the Suns came from 15 down early and five late to close out the series. KJ had 37 points, West had another big night on the boards with 16 rebounds and another great night on defense, and all the demons had at long last been exorcised.
"I've waited 20 years for this," said the Original Sun, Dick Van Arsdale.
In the end, the Lakers had no answers for KJ's speed, which was hardly surprising. "KJ went by us a lot," said Lakers' coach Pat Riley. "But I watched 100 videos of him in the last week, and you know what? He went by Seattle, Detroit, Chicago and everybody else too."
However, the Lakers also had no answers for the Suns' defense and that was borderline astonishing.
"That club wasn't really noted for great defense," said Cotton in an uncharacteristic understatement, "but in that series I think it played the most intense defense it had ever played." No small factor in that intensity was ex-Laker forward Kurt Rambis, who supplied some of the toughness that hitherto had been in somewhat short supply.
"I've always looked at that series, and especially the two games in Phoenix, as the most important in Suns history," said Cotton. "Winning that series was the start of all our sellouts and helped get us the new building."
Was this even bigger than upsetting defending champion Golden State to get to the NBA Finals in 1976?
"In my mind, yes," said Cotton. "The Warriors were the defending champs, but they weren't the Lakers. I didn't realize how important beating the Lakers was to our fans until we did beat them. Looking back, that was the series that showed we had really arrived."
Alas, the euphoria of the conquest of the Lakers wasn't enough to carry the Suns through the next series, as they lost the first two games of the Conference Finals in Portland by a total of three points. They came back to win Game 3 in Phoenix by 34 and Game 4 by 12, but that was the end of the line, as they lost Game 5 in Portland and Game 6 in Phoenix.
But that Laker series still stands as an important turning point in Suns history.
