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Show Page I HE HERALD, -T- Provo, Utah, Friday. April (C 27, 19M A full report and jl losers and coming events m(B(Qim $(BQl second round of the NBA playoff against the Phoenix Suns who defeated the Portland 5 Trailblazers Thursday night in Portland. The first game of the best of seven series will be played Sunday in the Salt Palace starting at 1:30 p.m. A roaring college-lik-e crowd of 12,731, that was almost constantly on its feet, went ba- By RAY SCHWARTZ Herald Sports Writer 114-10- The SALT LAKE CITY Utah Jazz, playing with a lot of heart, offensive skill and team work and a defensive tenacity that held Denver's high-scorin- , g "Fiercesome Threesome" to a total of 59 points, whipped the Nuggets 1 Thursday night to win the five game NBA playoff series three games to two. The win put the Jazz into the exhibition hall as the inspired basketeers of Coach Frank Layden charged out of the starting box with a at the vengeance, leading end of the first quarter and 8 at half time. The Nuggets made a run at the Jazz in both the third and fourth quarters cutting the Utahns' lead to six points on two occasions in the third period and whittling their advantage to four points three different times early in the final buildings' 127-11- 41-2- 7 72-5- nanas in the Salt Palaces' Acord Arena and another 2,614 whooped and hollered in the period. But Coach Doug Moe's 77 J never say die charges got caught up in an Adrian . Griffith shooting and passing buzzsaw that the Nuggets simply were unable to cope with as the Jazz blew the Denver club away down the stretch. Dantley scored 30 points, Green 29, and Griffith 24 for a combined total of 83 points. While Denver's hot shooting '"big three" of Alex English, Kiki Vandeweghe and Dan Issel, who averaged 87.5 points per game of the first four games of the series, were no match for the Jazz threesome Thursday night. English had 24 and Issel 25 points but Vandeweghe had a paltry 10 points. Vandeweghe had been scoring at a 29.3 clip for the first four games of the series but Thurl Bailey, a star on A Cat' a sZzZ5K Jeff Wilklns skies to score over Denver's Dan Issel in the ' Jazz' win Thursday night. o y; a . Coach Layden also had praise for the play of Bailey who had 10 points for the game. "Bailey is no longer a rookie," Layden said. "He is now playing like a seasoned veteran." Then Layden added: "You can't stop a great shooting team like Denver You've got to have team defense to beat them. And I believe that is the real reason we beat them. "I've got a lot of respect for them. Even with a lead against them you can't feel safe. I was still worried with 54 seconds left in the game and with us leading by 11, Denver can score a lot of points with the 'homerun shot.' JT A nt it Coach Moe said the Jazz played a great game ... "An absolutely super job. They just really shot well. They hustled and got after us. Any inadequacies we had were caused by them. They deserve to win. I'm upset that we lost but I'm thrilled for them." Griffiths got nine of his point points on three three-ru- n home shots. Two in the first period and the other in the third quarter. The first gave the Jazz a North Carolina State's 1983 team and the Jazz' top pick in the last year's NBA draft, did a defensive job on Vandeweghe who played collegiately at UCLA. In fact, Bailey's defensive play may have been the big key to the Jazz' blowout. "You can give a lot of credit tonight to Thurl Bailey for his play on Kiki," pointed out Jeff Wilkins of the Jazz who scored 14 points and,; had his best game of the series. "He really took him out of the game." Modest as usual, Bailey played down his sterling effort against Vandeweghe. 8 -l you can win and I think we did a good job of that tonight" NCAA championship m P- one-on-on- e. Green-Darre- ll 1 clutch victory over the Nuggets in Denver. "Kiki is a great player and so are English and Issel. If you can control their big three three-point- er 14-- 9 lead, his second a 24-1- advan- 9 tage and his third a 83-7- 2 margin. Then he and Green teamed beautifully on cross-cou- rt passes and nifty layups with Griffith getting two of the baskets and Green the third on a reverse layup. He changed the ball from one hand to the other while going for the hoop. It was basketball artistry at its best. combo The Griffith-Gree- n went a long way toward thwarting Denvers' attempt to get back into the game in the third period and early in the fourth period. "I learned a lot from him in those past five games," emphasized Bailey, one of the big heroes in last Tuesday night's 4 Jazz comeback great 129-12- U Steve Okea Photo Utah's Adrian Dantley moves inside for two of his in the series-clinchin- 30 points Jazz win. g I NBA Champs Will Not Repeat By TONY FAVIA UPI Sports Writer As the coach at San Antonio a year ago, Stan Albeck was 2- knocked for putting little emphasis on defense. On Tuesday night, he made his critics turn over their words. With his New Jersey Nets throwing a defensive blanket on the 76ers in the final minutes, Albeck achieved a measure of personal satisfaction by eliminating the defending NBA champions in Philadelphia 101-9"Personally, it's a highlight," Albeck said. "I'm really happy for the team. Everyone said we should make wholesale changes, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to give us stability." - r t 8. ' msm "i ky I- -- ' My- - ; ., m ' ii . - thud I ' Vi' For the Sixers, Moses Malone finished with 19 points but did not score in the final period. Andrew Toney had 22 and Maurice Cheeks 16. And Julius Erving, so resplendent last year in his first NBA championship, finished with 12. "Let's credit New Jersey for the job they did," said Erving, who boldly predicted a Sixers' victory after two wins in New Jersey tied the series. "They played outstanding. We forced them to play our kind of game but they responded to the challenge. "Our objective was to win, so in that sense we fell short," he noted. The Nets move on to play waukee, who routed Atlanta Mil118-8- 9. In other clinchers, Dallas 4 in overtime, edged Seattle 1 and Utah ripped Denver Phoenix ousted Portland 105-10- 127-11- 117-10- 5. NBA Roundup V I j. t It was the same bunch of nosed players the Nets have gone to all season, the same bunch who gelled late in the season and became one of the league's toughest teams. Otis Birdsong led the Nets with 24 points and Micheal Ray Richardson 1 Cleveland's Tony Bernazard slides safely back to first base as Greg Walker of Chicago tries for a pickoff. Bernazard was not as lucky in the fifth inning when he was caught between bases attempting to steal. The Indians won 5-- 4. best-of-fi- Oakland Enjoying Home Run King' By FRED McMANE UPI Sports Writer Dave Kingman appears to have the same regard for American League ballparks that Willie Sutton had for banks. Like the infamous bank robber Sutton, Kingman can't wait to get to his place of work because the pickin's so easy. "I'm extremely impressed with the ballparks in this league," Kingman said wryly Thursday after belting two more home runs and driving in five runs to lead the Oakland A's to a 74 triumph over the Toronto Blue Jays. Kingman's two homers raised his e leading total to nine major-leagu- and his RBI count to 24. So far this season the AL parks have seemed like Disneyland to the A s slugger. Kingman has hit only one of his homers at home. He's hammered three in Seattle and three in Boston in addition to his two in Toronto. "I can't remember a road trip when I've had this much success," he said. Heck, Hope and Crosby never had it so good on the roadr Moreover, Kingman, who has spent most of his 13 previous major-leagu- e seasons in the National League, still doesn't know much about the AL pitchers. "I'm on totally unfamiliar I've got a lot of new baltoarks and Ditchers to learn about," said Kingman. "Actually, I'm finding it's to my advantage because I can go out there with a totally clear mind." Oakland manager Steve Boros said Kingman's performance has added a new dimension to his ground. club. "We wanted to supplement our speed with some power. It's working out that way," said Boros. Kingman staked Oakland to a 0 lead with two out in the fourth when he clubbed the first pitch into the left-fiel-d off Jim Gott, bleachers with Davey Lopes on hasp 2-- 0-- 2, added 23. Buck Williams, arguably the finest power forward in the NBA, collected 17 points and 16 rebounds. Hie Nets, who won three games in the series at the Spectrum, trailed by 7 midway through the fourth quarter and 4 .with 2:51 remaining before ripping off 7 straight points and holding the 76ers scoreless the rest of the way, except for a meaningless buzzer shot. "This is our home away from home where we win," Albeck said. "I just told them there's still a lot of time. We've come so far to this .point. There was no reason to give up now." Dairy 1 Dawkins, the center who has filled the middle well for the Nets, said, "I didn't 96-9- He also connected with two runners on in the sixth to cap a four-ru- n inning. Willie Upshaw hit two homers for Toronto and George Bell and Jesse Barfield added solo blasts. Rickey Henderson hit a solo homer for Oakland. Elsewhere in the AL, Detroit Baltimore topped Texas routed Kansas City Cleve7-- 5, 11-- 3, land nipped Chicago MinneMilsota downed New York waukee edged California 1 and Seattle nipped Boston 5 in 10 innings. In National League games, Los Angeles defeated San Diego 5 and Atlanta edged Cincinnati 5-- 4-- 2, 2-- 6-- 6-- 2-- 1. rs know what was going to happen. All I know is that we wanted to win. We played tough and hard. They're the defending champions. I don't want to say anything bad about those guys. They gave us a run for our money." Bucks 118, Hawks 89 At Milwaukee, Sidney Moncrief scored 20 points to lead seven players in double figures and the Bucks used a suffocating defense and a second-perio- d rally to crush the Hawks. Milwaukee held Atg forward duo lanta's of Dominique Wilkins and Dan Roundfield to 23 points. Glenn Rivers led Atlanta with 21. Mavericks 105, SnperSonics 104 At Dallas, Rolando Blackman scored 6 of his 29 points in the final 1:52 of regulation and the high-scorin- Mavericks scored the first 6 points of overtime to send Dallas into the second round against Los Angeles. Seattle led 9846 with 2:08 left in the fourth period before Blackman began the final tied it 5 surge. His with 16 seconds left. Gus Williams had 27 points and Jack Sikma 26 for Seattle. Sons 117, Trail Blazers 105 At Portland, Ore., Walter Davis scored 29 points, Kyle Macy had 20 and the pair fueled a third-quart95-9- er spurt that carried Phoenix. The Suns will meet Utah in the Western Conference semifinals. After Portland had battled back to within 8843 with 8:20 left, the Sons outscored the Blazers 0 minutes. during the next 6 Jim Paxson had 24 points and Calvin Natt 20 for the Trail Blazers. 22-1- The first round of the playoffs closes tonight with New. York at Detroit in their fifth game. The winner plays Boston. |
