For Pride and Profit

Though a newcomer to the pros, New York Knick Guard Dean Meminger has a veteran's grasp of what the annual free-for-all called the National Basketball Association play-offs is all about. He proved it in last week's showdown game with the Boston Celtics, when a flash fight between Knick Bill Bradley and Celtic Don Nelson threatened to erupt into a bench-clearing slugfest. Meminger, the smallest man on the floor, quickly stepped in front of Boston's Dave Cowens, the 6-ft. 9-in. center with flaming red hair and a temper to match, and said: "Cool it. Let's not anybody get hurt or jeopardize his career. We're playing for a lot of money."

This spring the quest for the $100,000 jackpot that will go to the championship team has caused more than the usual amount of erratic behavior. The Los Angeles Lakers, listless and barely able to survive their first-round clash with the bruising Chicago Bulls, came roaring back to polish off the Golden State Warriors in five games. The Knicks, helped by an injury that all but immobilized Celtic Star John Havlicek, ran up a commanding lead of three games to one, then lost two in a row. With that the Celtics did something they had never done before in ten previous play-off series that went to the seventh and deciding game: they lost. In the end, those two old money teams, the Knicks and the Lakers, squared off in the finals.

Even so, going into the opening game at the Los Angeles Forum last week, experience was not the most critical factor. Rather it was an edge in size and speed that made the Lakers 8-to-5 favorites to hang on to their title. For the underdog Knicks, the match-ups posed a number of imponderables. Forward Dave DeBusschere figured to neutralize the rebounding muscle of Bill Bridges, but could Forward Bill Bradley and Guard Earl Monroe contain the faster, higher-scoring tandem of Jim McMillian and Gail Goodrich? Would Center Willis Reed, slowed by tendinitis, be able to pull Wilt Chamberlain away from the boards by shooting from the outside? And, in the most exciting confrontation of all, could Guard Walt Frazier outhustle Jerry West? "Between us," predicted Frazier, "it is going to be a battle of pride."

What Frazier got, for starters, was a bad case of humiliation. As Frazier goes, so go the Knicks, and, hounded by the relentless West, Frazier went nowhere. The Knicks' leading scorer was only able to make one meager field goal in the entire first half. DeBusschere and Bradley, who led the Knicks with 25 and 24 points respectively, helped close the scoring gap in the second half, but Reed proved no match for the indomitable Chamberlain, who plucked rebounds like so many oranges off a tree.

Finally the Knicks managed to put it all together in one of their patented comebacks; they closed to within three points in the final moments. But then, with 40 seconds remaining, the harassed Frazier threw the ball--and the Knicks' hopes--away. Led by West, who outscored Frazier 24 points to 12, and Goodrich, who contributed a game-high total of 30, the Lakers won 115-112.

The second game was a flipflop. The Knicks, with their customary clawing defense, lost the ball only nine times while forcing the Lakers into 19 costly turnovers. Reed, Jerry Lucas and Phil Jackson, a 6-ft. 8-in. gangle-shanks who uses his elbows like scythes, cut Chamberlain down to size by the simple expedient of climbing up his back. It was a sensible risk; Wilt the Stilt is the worst foul shooter in N.B.A. history and, true to form, he missed eight of nine attempts from the charity line. West, as usual, missed hardly anything, hitting for a game-high total of 32 points. Proving once again that they are the best-balanced team in the league, the Knicks had five scorers in double figures as they outlasted the Lakers 99-95.

Frazier, who contributed 20 points and was his old playmaking self, won back his pride. All that remained as the two teams moved on to New York was to determine who had enough pride to win that $ 100,000 profit.

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