PEAKING IN THE VALLEY

PHOENIX —  Like a desert Camelot, rising from the mist, the Valley of the Sun stirs anew.

It has been five years since the Suns made it out of the first round, seven since they met their ancient foes, the Lakers, in the playoffs, but guess who’s coming to dinner?

And guess who’s preparing a special Valley welcome?

As time ran out on Tuesday’s victory that dethroned the San Antonio Spurs, Sun fans started chanting “Beat L.A.!”--three days before the Lakers secured their berth. Despite subsequent events, like the Laker misadventure in Sacramento, it was nice to see someone still believed in them.

“If we go play L.A., this whole valley is going to be jump-started,” Kevin Johnson gushed in the dressing room, even as the Kings pounded on the Lakers in Game 4.

“These guys [teammates] don’t know that. You can’t possibly know it. They’ll be putting up signs up in the windows. It’ll be on the radio stations. Everything will revolve around the Phoenix Suns. I don’t care what the Diamondbacks do. I don’t care if the Cardinals got a stadium. It’s going to be all on the Suns because of the time of year. It’s starting now.”

How it happened is another story. Talk about your minor miracles. . . .

Their coach, Danny Ainge, resigned after 20 games. Their owner, Jerry Colangelo, made veiled but ominous remarks about Tom Gugliotta, in whom they had invested $10 million a year, which was a lot to pay for 13.7 points a game, and Luc Longley, who was getting $6 million and averaging 6.3.

They lost Gugliotta to a knee injury March 10, which was bad. Then they lost Jason Kidd to an ankle injury on March 22, which was devastating.

Clinging to the No. 4 berth in the Western Conference, they lost their last two games in America West Arena and fell to No. 5, handing home-court advantage in the first round to the Spurs.

Before the opener in San Antonio, Johnson, out of retirement as Kidd’s emergency replacement, told Coach Scott Skiles he was only 70% because of a groin pull. Determined not to embarrass himself, Johnson was proceeding carefully at every stage.

Asked about it before the game, the hard-pressed, hard-bitten Skiles said, “Has anybody ever known when he’ll be able to go?”

Johnson played that night, settling his teammates down after the Spurs had taken an early lead, in a game Phoenix stole, 72-70.

Game 2 wasn’t for three more days. Johnson, asked about it, said, “The more days off we have, the better it is for Jason Kidd.”

That was how desperate they were. Kidd wasn’t even with them, having stayed in Phoenix to rehab. Team officials said they were hoping for the second round . . . assuming, of course, they were in it.

Meanwhile, they waited, game by game, for San Antonio’s Tim Duncan to come back and drop the hammer on them.

Duncan never made it back, but Kidd did. Sporting a new blond hairdo and the same old point- guard-of-his-generation game, he returned to put an exclamation point on the Suns’ final win, launching his teammates to new heights. Penny Hardaway, whose greatness had been long dormant and whose drives to the basket had become infrequent, threw down a monster left-handed windmill dunk and made a few other plays no one had seen in years.

Of course, they’re still underdogs, having gone 0-4 against the Lakers during the season, while Shaquille O’Neal averaged 33 points.

But Kidd only played in the first two, and the Lakers don’t look as intimidating as they did, and this isn’t the best time to be playing the Suns, either, so as they say in Sacramento, stay tuned.

How Do We Hate Thee?

In the newly constructed canyons of Colangelo Land, the southern end of downtown Phoenix given over to Jerry Colangelo’s basketball team’s arena and his baseball team’s domed stadium, the Laker rivalry has been a reason for living, frustrations and all.

The Suns usually had good teams. The Lakers usually had good ones with 7-foot future Hall of Fame centers.

The Suns are used to getting backhanded by fate. In 1969, they had a coin flip with Milwaukee for draft rights to Lew Alcindor--he later became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar--but lost and got the next center . . . Neal Walk.

In 1970, the Suns’ second year, when Colangelo fired Coach John Kerr and took over on the sideline, despite never having coached, they made the playoffs and shocked the Wilt Chamberlain-Jerry West- Elgin Baylor Lakers by grabbing a 3-1 lead.

Then the Lakers became the first NBA team to come from 3-1 down and won, 4-3.

Thankfully, for the Suns, Wilt retired in 1973.

Unfortunately, Abdul-Jabbar forced the Bucks to trade him in 1975--to the Lakers.

Finally, he retired in 1989, giving the Suns a window of opportunity. Phoenix made the Western Conference finals three times between ’90 and ‘93, ousting the Lakers twice.

Unfortunately, the Lakers landed Shaq in 1996, launching a new era of prominence, if no dynasty to date.

Meanwhile, the Suns, rebuilt around Johnson in the ‘80s and Charles Barkley in the ‘90s, were in the midst of another make-over around Kidd, but it was going slowly. Years of saving salary-cap space and burnishing their reputation as a high-paying, player-friendly, family-style organization led to the signings of Hardaway, Gugliotta and Longley, but seemed to leave them as a second-echelon power.

Not that their golf handicaps suffered.

In the modern NBA, the Suns were dinosaurs, with relaxed practices, if they practiced at all. Colangelo hired gregarious, nice-guy coaches--Cotton Fitzsimmons, Paul Westphal, Ainge--whose idea of a day off was 18 holes.

This season, Colangelo started giving off signs of impatience with his own tradition. The Suns were only 4-4 when he noted, “There’s no two-hour limit on practices. If it takes 12 hours to straighten things out, then take 12 hours,” and said of the popular Ainge, “Danny’s not a novice. This is his fourth year already.”

At 13-7, Ainge resigned, walking away from about $5 million.

He was replaced by his assistant, Skiles, and the change was immediate. Before games, writers had always hung around in the coach’s office. Ainge was the most unaffected coach anyone had ever seen, wearing gym clothes, laughing and joking with writers and team officials, his feet on the desk.

Now the office was off limits and Skiles did a little news conference in the hall before games.

“I think the attitude by people in the league to some degree was, they love coming here to play and they were treated well and everything else,” Colangelo says, “but a concern I felt was building a little bit was maybe a little country club atmosphere.

“You know, you could be a little bit too nice and take care of them too well and things could be a little too easy. We couldn’t bring snow and cold and gray skies, so you’re fighting that in this kind of a marketplace, with the weather we have.

“But I think the point you’re getting to is Skiles. I think a real change took place with Scott, in terms of focus, commitment, no-nonsense. That’s not a knock at anyone else who preceded him, but it’s just the reality.”

A change took place in terms of defense too.

The Suns, No. 19 last season, moved up to No. 8 as Skiles simplified their schemes and honed their intensity. They’re harder-edged now and, even if they aren’t huge, more physical.

As San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich noted, “They really sustain it throughout the game. It isn’t just in spurts and it isn’t just when Scottie gets up and gets on someone.”

Skiles was a high school legend in Plymouth, Ind., a college star at Michigan State but an inconsistent pro who had to make up for his lack of size and quickness. Ainge, who didn’t know him well when he hired him, once remarked he could tell Skiles was smart, because in their playing days, Skiles always knew what Ainge’s Celtics would do as soon as they made their play call.

“The only way I could survive defensively in the league was by scheme and knowing that when Detroit called motion, Isiah [Thomas] was going to bring it at me with everybody flat [on the baseline] and try to take me,” Skiles says. “By knowing what was being run, by trying to funnel it a certain way and playing team defense within a game plan and all that--that’s the only way I could survive.

“Even though I didn’t appear to be a good defender and wasn’t a good one-on-one defender, I still was a good team defender. . . .

“Plus, I’m just a junkie, you know. As a player I watched every game, every other player, just did everything I could to prepare myself.”

When Ainge left, there was a report alleging that Skiles had knifed him in the back by going upstairs with news of what was going on in the dressing room.

There seems little substance to the report. To Skiles, it was a point of honor to back Ainge, who’d hired him. Besides, on the Suns, it was never necessary for anyone to go upstairs, since the Colangelos, father and son, Jerry and President-General Manager Bryan, hung out downstairs.

Skiles resists characterizing his approach, trying to deflect the credit to his players so he can go watch another six hours of videotape.

The ones before him were good coaches who posted winning records. Skiles is just the next in line, the one who made the changes that needed to be made.

Kidds Are All Right

Actually, it was the idea of Kidd’s wife, Joumana, to lighten his hair.

Joumana is an out-there young woman who is given credit for settling down the wild youth she married. A cute couple they are, too, posing for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue.

“We were sitting around,” she told the Arizona Republic’s Paola Boivin, “and I said, ‘Why don’t you dye your hair?’

“He said, ‘I’m too young to dye my hair.’

“And I said, ‘Not like that, just to have some fun.’ ”

So it was as a blond that Kidd returned to the Suns for Game 4, showing no problems with the bone he’d broken in his left ankle five weeks earlier, breaking down the Spurs’ defense time after time. Not that he’s 100% yet or anything like it, but he’s back and not a moment too soon.

“I feel great,” Kidd said. “Maybe I should sit out the last four weeks of the season. I’m not tired mentally or physically. I only have a small part to do with this. The guys put us in this position to win, here at home, going into San Antonio and taking away home-court advantage. . . .

“I’m sitting on the sideline watching Penny play the way that he’s been playing and Shawn [Marion] and Cliff [Robinson] and Rodney [Rogers], it makes me a big fan of the game. I hate to be hurt, don’t want to be hurt anymore, but if I had to watch a team play, I would love to come and watch the Suns because they play both ends of the court. . . .

“I told Kevin, ‘I probably wouldn’t have three screws [in his ankle, after the surgery] if you were back. My minutes would be cut down and I would be a lot stronger and healthier.’ ”

Beware of teams on the uptick.

Having made it through everything they had to survive to get here, the Suns have emerged with their games sharpened, their spirits lifted and their fans excited.

Johnson gives Kidd a better backup than he has ever had. With Kidd out, Hardaway had to step up his game and now has moments when he looks like the old Penny, the one the Suns hoped could put them over the top when they signed him for $12.4 million a year.

So now, it’s a Valley carnival as Jerry Colangelo does interviews in the press room, while cradling his granddaughter, Sophia, Bryan’s 3-month old daughter.

The Lakers are coming, at long last. The thrill that was gone so long is back.