RESPECT THIS: UTAH FINALLY FOUND A WAY

In panic situations - and that's what Karl Malone called it, not us - a team has to do what a team has to do.

So the Utah Jazz brought in ... Rodney Dangerfield? That's right, Rodney. All we need is one win, Rodney.

No, he couldn't guard Gary Payton, either. He could barely get a rise out of the Delta Center stoics with a couple of lame one-liners in the no-respect vein during the first timeout, leaving him to wander off the floor wondering why he'd bothered to come.

Same for the Seattle SuperSonics, who wandered off the floor 96-76 losers in Game 3 of the NBA's Western Conference finals Friday night.

The Jazz - though happy enough to be on the board after losing a pair in Seattle - immediately hunkered back into the it-don't-mean-a-thing-'til-the-fat-lady-sing posture favored by playoff winners and losers alike.

Well, except Friday's losers. The Sonics opted for whining.

"We were just taken out of the game by us not being able to be aggressive," said Sonics guard Nate McMillan. "Them bumping us, us bumping them and the call is made - it took us out of our game. Mentally, it just drained us."

Well, Nate certainly wasn't draining anything else.

Wait. In fairness, 28 fouls and 26 turnovers may be some justification for the Sonics feeling jobbed - but not nearly as jobbed as the paying customers who plopped down good money to see Malone and Shawn Kemp go at it, but instead were treated to watching referees Mike Mathis, Hue Hollins and Jack Nies out-Kevorkian one another.

Here the Jazz marketeers drop all those balloons - just so the place could sound like a giant pan of Jiffy Pop - and the zeebs decide to suck all the air out of the place. Not meaning to suggest that the proceedings were over-officiated, but when John Stockton locked his car in the parking lot, he got whistled for illegal defense.

Sonics coach George Karl wasn't at all hesitant in the days leading up to Game 3 to hint he smelled a hosing coming on - whether in his passionate rejoinders that Seattle's defense is perfectly legal or in wondering how many free throws Malone might get to shoot at home.

By the second quarter, the Sonics' body language said the same thing. Still, when the referees actually took 5 - and it wasn't until the last 2 minutes of the third period that the action went as long as seven possessions without a whistle - it was the Jazz that went on a little run and not Seattle.

No, the conspiracy that beat the Sonics was much more diverse, as Karl himself pointed out in the postgame.

"We didn't pass the ball well enough to win - if there's a fundamental of the game we got burned on, that was it," he said. "I think we overshot the ball from the outside without much rhythm."

Anything else?

"They ran better than they've run all series - they were the better running team tonight, and if that happens again Sunday, they'll win again," Karl predicted.

They may win anyway, if they can bottle up Kemp with double teams and foul trouble as effectively as they did this night and not have to pay the price Seattle has exacted with its 3-point shooting since the start of the Houston series. The Sonics made just 6 of 25 from beyond the arc, while Kemp and Detlef Schrempf got next to nothing down low.

"At least we were getting there tonight with the double-teams," said Jazz guard Jeff Hornacek, whose 28 points matched Malone's for high in the game. "The first two games, we weren't getting there, we were so concerned about them hitting the 3s."

And, of course, the first two games Bryon Russell played like a street mime.

The Jazz won their semifinal series against San Antonio on the strength of their bench and lost Games 1 and 2 in part because the same reserves fainted. The 28 points they scored Friday wouldn't be considered a bonanza, except Russell scored 24 of them to go with 10 boards and a variety of hustle plays that can't be quantified.

"When he gets his hands on a lot of basketballs and runs the floor, he gets into a rhythm offensively where he shoots the ball a lot better," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.

Which means he gets to stay on the floor. Russell played 39 minutes, after going just 7 in Game 2.

"You can only keep a good player down so long before you have to expose him," said Russell by way of explanation. "When he (Sloan) left me out there, things just started happening.

"We weren't going to let happen the same things that happened in Game 1 and Game 2. We're a better team than that and we were going to show we're a better team."

He may have had more to say about respect and such, but it seemed a little redundant. After all, they'd brought in Rodney for that duty, hadn't they?

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

Copyright 1996 Cowles Publishing Company
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