Chron: Malone, as usual, has last word with Rockets

April 26, 2004, 1:35AM



Malone, as usual, has last word with Rockets
By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle


The tortoise beats the hare. Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown. The anvil falls on Wile E. Coyote's head. Karl Malone torments the Rockets.

Some things never change.

"I thought when I left Utah I was leaving them behind," Malone said. "But here they are, back in my face."

Of course, here he is, jumping up and down on their heads again.

It wasn't just the 30 points Malone poured into the Lakers' 92-88 overtime win in a frenzied Game 4 on Sunday. It wasn't just the rugged 13 rebounds he pulled out of the scrums beneath the basket. Or even the driving three-point play he converted with 1:27 left in overtime that also fouled out Yao Ming.

It was his attitude. This Mailman came delivering a hammer. Not to mention delivering the Lakers from a perilous position.

"It turned into a scuffle," Malone said grinning. "I like scuffles."

Only the way a fish likes water.

So when the most unlikely of combatants, Boki Nachbar, provided the challenge midway through the second quarter, it only stiffened Malone's dorsal fin with resolve.

It began when Nachbar went in for a rousing slam dunk and had his legs cut out from under him by Malone. While the soaring Nachbar was plummeting to earth, he grabbed Malone's jersey and ripped it across the back. That touched off a squabble that had Steve Francis in Malone's face and the head coaches, Jeff Van Gundy and Phil Jackson, exchanging unpleasantries near midcourt. Less than a half-minute later, Nachbar came right back and took a foul on Malone, and the two turned to bark at each other.

"Nack-bar, Hack-bar, whatever the hell his name is. Why should I care?" Malone asked. "I just came to play and to win."

Not if you listen to the Rockets. Cuttino Mobley called Malone a "studio gangster." Team owner Leslie Alexander said "Malone is bull." Said Francis: "You know what kind of dirt he brings to the game."

Malone simply grinned again.

"Players should play, and owners should own," he said. "I don't know who the hell that man (Alexander) is. Not if he walked through the door right now. I never want a job from him. I don't ever want to meet him. That's putting it nicely.

"And the other guy (Francis) -- he's a ... little gnat. You know what you do with gnats? You swat 'em. I've been hit harder by my 5-year-old daughter."

This is the Malone the Lakers signed last summer to add punch to their roster but who missed 40 games during the regular season due to a strained medial collateral ligament in his right knee. He and fellow free-agent signee Gary Payton have struggled to fit into Jackson's triangle offense and to blend their talents with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

Now, though, you get the feeling the 19-year NBA veteran has decided to step up and assert himself, taking the shots the Rockets are giving him when they double-team in the lane, making any plays or physical statements he feels is necessary. Malone appears tired of the seemingly eternal fussing between O'Neal and Bryant and is ready to do whatever it takes to secure his first championship ring.

The Rockets continued to dare the 40-year-old Malone to shoot, and he made them pay, hitting 11 of 17 attempts from the field in becoming the oldest player in league history to score 30 points in a playoff game. Malone reached 20 by halftime and is the only participant in this year's playoffs to accomplish that.

"Shaq, Kobe, Gary, the coaches, everybody is telling me to be aggressive, to shoot the ball," he said. "So that's what I've got to do."

The Lakers let a 69-55 lead late in the third quarter evaporate when the offense bogged down around Bryant's one-on-one play and were lucky to reach the overtime when a Francis jumper with 6.9 seconds left in regulation came up short and the Rockets were called for a shot-clock violation.

The Rockets then led 87-83 overtime until Malone took a feed from Payton and dropped in a running nine-footer that also got Yao disqualified.

Bryant might have scored the Lakers' last five points of the game to clinch it, but it was Malone who gave them life.

"I told Karl coming out of the timeout to be ready, that I was coming for him with the ball," Payton said. "I told him, `No matter where else I look, it's you that I'm coming to. Be ready to get the job done.' He was."

The way he has been against the Rockets for nearly two decades.

Malone refused to change his jersey at halftime to look more presentable for the ABC-TV cameras, opting to wear it the way Rocky Balboa wore bruises.

"You're kinda superstitious, you know?" he said. "You don't want to take it off when you're going good. The first thing I had to do after the game was fight off Big (O'Neal) for it. I'm gonna take this one home and give it to my son for a souvenir."

The Rockets, of course, have enough by which to remember Karl Malone.

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Gotta love the drama of the Playoffs

 

That fall by Nachbar could have been tragic, but it didn't look like Malone did that on purpose. It's hard to stop a fast moving 260 lb body in a second and a half. I'm not a big fan of Karl Malone's either, but I doubt he was trying to pull a Jason Collins...