Some Houston Rockets fans at Game 6 of the NBA Finals don't believe commissioner David Stern is as fan-tastic as he claims the league is.
The fans, seated three rows in front of Stern during Sunday night's sixth game, said a security guard asked them to sit down during final few minutes of the game because they were blocking the commissioner's view."He (Stern) had an attitude problem that everybody should kiss his fanny," Houston developer Scooter McCrory said. "Maybe they do that in New York City. But it doesn't work in Texas."
NBA spokesman Brian McIntyre said Stern was embarrassed by the situation because the commissioner did not ask the security guard to instruct fans to sit down.
McCrory said that after the security guard invited them to sit down, he and other fans turned to mix words with Stern.
"It was the weirdest thing in the world, the weirdest," said Boots Goldberg, a Houston lawyer who is a first cousin to former Rockets owner Billy Goldberg. "There were some unpleasantries said from our side."
KEEPING IT CLOSE: All six games of the NBA Finals have been decided by less than 10 points, the first time since 1975 that the margin of victory has been in single digits for every game in the championship round. That 1975 series lasted just four games, as Golden State swept Washington.
Of the 66 previous NBA playoff series that have gone seven games, only once was the margin of victory in single digits in every game. That happened in the 1955 finals when Syracuse beat Fort Wayne 4-3. The average margin of victory that year was 4.3 points and the biggest point spread was seven.
This year, the average victory margin is 6.2 points, with nine as the largest spread.
"This is as close a series as I've ever been in," Knicks coach Pat Riley said. "There has not been one game that has gotten away from anybody. I can remember (with the Lakers) in those seven-game series we got blown out on the road. We got blown out by 35 at Utah. But each and every one of these games has been decided in the last three or four minutes."
If the winner of Game 7 Wednesday night scores less than 100 points, it will be the first time in 67 seven-game series that no team reached the century mark. No final series of any length has seen a team fail to score 100 points.
VICTORY SUITS HIM: Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich will wear his lucky black suit to Game 7 Wednesday night.
"I haven't lost with that black suit and I've probably worn it about 10 times," Tomjanovich said Tuesday. "I wore it in Game 3 in New York and I thought about wearing it again the next game, but you can't push the gods too hard, so I didn't. But let's don't let this get out of proportion. Rebounding and getting back on the break are more important than that suit."
THE REBOUND STORY: For the first time in this year's NBA Finals, the team that won the rebound battle lost the game.
New York outrebounded Houston 40-38 in Game 6, but what worried Tomjanovich was the Knicks' 14-5 advantage in offensive rebounds.
In the first half, New York had just two offensive rebounds as Houston opened a 10-point lead, but the Knicks rallied by going to the boards in the second half, and they lost by just two points.
FATHER LIKES SON: Hakeem Olajuwon's father finally saw his son play his first NBA game Sunday night.
"He saw tapes before, but this is the first time he realized how hard we work," Olajuwon said. "I told him we play over 100 games a year like this. He was very impressed with how hard I work."