No Need To Panic, As Sonics Can Learn From Resilient Jazz

They still start up the count at KeyArena each time Karl Malone goes into his human-rain-delay ritual at the foul line, and even NBC picked up on it Tuesday night.

You just can’t slip a stale joke past those network guys, though “Caroline in the City” should have been proof enough.

For new material, we had to look to the Utah Jazz and what they concocted for the Seattle SuperSonics was - ta-da - also a count.

A standing eight.

It’s protection for the woozy, the wobbly, the fuzzy-headed - all pretty good descriptions of the Sonics in the overtime of their 98-95 loss in Game 5 of the NBA’s Western Conference finals.

The Sonics are still ahead on points, of course - three games to two - but instead of heading for a neutral corner, the action now returns to Salt Lake City. And for that, the Sonics must be a little honked at themselves. Not as honked as the media pack in their wake, mind you, though hardly for the reason Malone cited in the interview room.

“I guarantee, if you take a poll in this room right here, ain’t too many people give us a chance tonight,” Malone said. “You might say you did, but you’re probably lying.”

Actually, Malone may have overestimated the doubters.

True, few believe the Jazz can run the table on this team, but Sonics history is a shallow grave. Tales from the crypts of Denver 1994 and L.A. 1995 still get a little circulation, though apparently not in the Sonics’ locker room.

“We’re still up 3-2,” said forward Sam Perkins. “I don’t think we’ll be down on ourselves because of this. If we’d been blown out, we might be questioning our heart and desire, but that’s not the case.”

No, certainly not. This was more a case of the Sonics wrapping their lips around a bottle of Moet and then getting the hiccups.

The result: pledge night at Delta Tau Chi.

This does not give near enough credit to the Jazz, of course. They were down 10-0 to start in a joint where they hadn’t won all season to a team that’s had their number in every close game. Two of their five starters failed to even get on the board, and a third - the struggling John Stockton - barely did, though he would eventually make the game’s two deciding plays.

To review: with the game tied in overtime, Malone airballed a jumper near the end of the shot clock, but Stockton got his butt into Shawn Kemp and drew a foul, making the free throws that put Utah ahead for good.

Then, when Seattle had the ball and 18.1 seconds to tie or go ahead, Detlef Schrempf led Gary Payton a tad too far with an inbounds pass and Stockton scooped up the ball on the baseline.

Game.

That was the last of four Sonics turnovers in the overtime and 19 for the game, and statistically that was the difference - that and the 16 extra free throws the Jazz shot. The most protested of those came at the end of the third period, when the referees first didn’t call a foul on Perkins and did call a technical on Utah coach Jerry Sloan - then reversed both decisions.

They were half right. In this series, that’s progress.

Payton was obviously hot after the game, but the officiating had little or nothing to do with it and the 31 points he scored were of no consolation.

“We messed up,” he admitted. “We got a little tentative - way too tentative. I was the only one who took shots.”

Not quite - Kemp did manage to coax the tying bucket over the rim in regulation. But when it mattered, everyone else disappeared - even the veterans - and that’s a condition everyone thought the Sonics had solved.

“Now we’ve just made our job harder,” Payton groused.

Hey, Gary, the Jazz have helped a little, too. In the previous series, much was made of Houston’s “heart of a champion” but there’s a little heart in Utah, too, even if there is no championship.

“I think we kept out of the word ‘desperation,”’ Stockton said. “I think our backs are against the wall, but you can’t panic and desperation makes you think of panic. We just played very hard and kept trying.”

And kept motivated.

“We knew coming in they were going to try to blow us away,” said Malone. “We also knew coming in that they were selling Bulls tickets at our shoot-around this morning.

“I try not to read the newspapers, but you can’t help but see some of the headlines that the Jazz are done, stick a fork in ‘em. We ain’t done yet. We’re still cooking a little bit.”

Guess we can count on that.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

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