Weapon No Longer a Secret

CHICAGO —  For Michael Jordan, this one was a real tongue depressor. Maybe he expected to make the winning basket for the Bulls. Or maybe he expected old schoolmate James Worthy to make the winning basket for the Lakers. But Sam Perkins? For three points? From 24 feet? Here inside Chicago’s thunder dome? Nike Mikey didn’t like it, but Michael Dunleavy sure did.

Wham, bam, thank you, Sam!

“Took a Tar Heel to beat me,” Jordan said.

A Laker aiming practically from Lake Michigan, unlikely hero Perkins let ‘er rip with 14 seconds remaining in Sunday’s Game 1 of the NBA finals--the wrong man shooting too soon from too far. Bam . He made his third three-pointer of the day (Chicago’s whole team sank one), made Dunleavy look like a genius and made 93-91 winners of the Lakers, who simply refuse to lose.

Nothing could be finer than to be from North Carolina. Jordan, Worthy and Perkins scored 80 of the game’s 184 points.

Thing is, until he became a Laker, nobody ever gave Perkins permission to fire. Said Worthy: “I’ve known Sam since he was a skinny 18-year-old boy, and back then, all he could do was shoot.”

For weeks now, maybe months, Sam Perkins has been the secret weapon of Los Angeles, possibly even the best player in the playoffs. Everybody knew he could bump and grind beneath the basket. But nobody expected him to station his 6-foot-9 self beyond the three-point arc and fire left-handed strikes, like Dave Cowens or a Tom McMillen. It turns out that like the Lakers themselves, Sam Perkins has an outside shot.

Even so, the ending of Sunday’s game was not exactly what Dunleavy drew on his chalkboard.

Jordan, tongue a-dangling, drove and shot a 15-foot banker. He missed, and Perkins pulled down the rebound. At that point there were 23.5 seconds left to play, so theoretically, the Lakers never again had to let the Bulls get their mitts on the ball. Chicago Stadium shut off the 24-second clock, and Dunleavy designed a play, even telling Terry Teagle to replace Vlade Divac so the team would have four--sorry, Sam . . . five--good shooters in the game.

Larry Drew and Mychal Thompson sat on the Laker bench.

“Byron time,” Thompson said.

“Right, perfect time for Byron,” Drew said.

Byron Scott took the inbounds pass from Teagle. Byron was definitely overdue. Had one basket all day. But instead of shooting, Scott handed off to Johnson, who immediately drew the attention of two Bulls. All day long, Perkins’ man had been dropping off to help out on Johnson. And all day long, Magic kept snapping at teammates to get open whenever he was double-teamed.

Perkins got open for the pass. Boy, was he ever open.

Why he shot, though, only he knows.

Dunleavy said it certainly wasn’t planned the way, although Perkins ordinarily is green-lighted to shoot under other circumstances. Perkins felt he was perfectly welcome to shoot--which he did, while Johnson, Scott, Worthy and Teagle stared somewhat in disbelief.

Teagle said: “I had a good view of it from under the basket, and the instant Sam let it go, I could tell it was dead-center. So, I didn’t complain.”

Neither did Dunleavy, who said he would like to take credit but couldn’t.

And neither did Thompson or Drew, who gave five to one another on the bench. “Perfectly designed play!” Drew said.

“Exactly the play I would have called!” Thompson said.

Uh huh.

Actually, the Lakers weren’t all that surprised. Drew said he and Perkins engage in one-on-one shooting contests at practice all the time, which Perkins often wins. Dunleavy is always making small wagers that he can outshoot Johnson and Scott--the coach claims he’s up about $100 so far--but now he is beginning to feel guilty about excluding Perkins from the contest.

And Worthy said: “I’ve seen Sam shoot those 19-footers and 22-footers and hit them all day long. I’m glad Dallas didn’t use him that way. Now he’s like a big secret. All these years in the league, and people still don’t know what Sam can do.”

As for the man of the hour himself, Perkins is still adjusting to playing for a championship, when about all he did for Dallas was play for a paycheck. Minutes after Sunday’s game, Sam sat on a table, unwrapping tape that made his leg look like a mummy, took a deep sigh and said: “Man, this is a different kind of basketball!”

How so, Sam?

“Well, ordinarily if I take a shot like that, it wouldn’t much matter if it went out or went in. The game would be over and that’d be that. But this thing, the finals--well, let’s just say if I’d missed that shot, the whole game would have been on my head.”

Which makes you nervous?

“No, it makes me happy,” Perkins said. “My taking that shot today was the unexpected, and that can deflate your opponent, doing the unexpected. That’s the Lakers this year. We’re unexpected.”