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Glad to be here Despite 3-1 hole, Mutombo thrilled to play in Finals
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Dikembe Mutombo considered where he was four months ago and couldn't stop smiling. Even if the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night to capture their second straight NBA title, Mutombo is thrilled he got a chance to play for the championship. "If somebody would have told me when I was in Atlanta that you can be in the Finals every year, I would have taken it," Mutombo said Thursday. "This is a great opportunity that has come to me." Mutombo was heading for an early offseason with the lottery-bound Hawks before coming to the Sixers in a six-player deal at the trade deadline. The seven-time All-Star solidified a strong defense and helped the Sixers overcome numerous injuries to reach the Finals for the first time in 18 years. Along the way, Mutombo, who won his fourth defensive player of the year award, established himself as a scoring threat. In the playoffs he has displayed an ability to hit midrange jumpers. "It's been very satisfying for me because I've never been the second option," Mutombo said. Mutombo, however, hasn't been able to slow down Shaquille O'Neal, and the Lakers have won three in a row after losing the series opener. Now, the Sixers can only think of preventing the Lakers from celebrating at the First Union Center. "You never want anybody to celebrate on your home court," Eric Snow said. "We faced that the last two rounds in Game 7s. I'm not thinking about going down. We are thinking about winning Friday." No team ever has come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals to win a championship. Only two teams were even able to force a Game 7 -- the 1951 Knicks and 1966 Lakers. The Sixers got this far on heart and determination. But the Lakers' talent has been too much to overcome. "We know it's like mission impossible," Allen Iverson said. Philadelphia entered the series as prohibitive underdogs, but stunned the Lakers with a 107-101 overtime victory in the opener. Iverson had 48 points in Game 1, but since has shot 34-of-89, including 5-of-20 from 3-point range. "I think I can play better than I've been playing," the league's MVP and scoring champion said. "I'm just not moving as fast as I usually am. But I guess that comes from 82 games and three other playoff series. I just got enough gas in my tank to keep driving. But I don't know when it's going to run out. Hopefully, we can win this next game and I find out in Los Angeles." Aaron McKie, the NBA's sixth man of the year, is even more fatigued than Iverson. He's missing short on open jumpers, and hasn't been the scoring threat he was in the first three rounds of the playoffs. McKie, playing with a chip fracture in his right ankle, also has struggled defensively against Kobe Bryant, who fell one assist short of a triple-double Wednesday night. "I feel I can be out there giving more," McKie said. "I just have to come out and play hard, play the way I'm capable of playing. I'm not one to make excuses for the way I'm playing. It just hasn't been going my way. But there are still other things that I can be doing to help my team try to win." The Sixers had chances to win Games 2 and 3, but couldn't get the key shot or make a big stop late in the game. They missed 10 free throws in the fourth quarter of Game 2 and left Robert Horry open for a 3-pointer in the final minute of Game 3. "We keep talking about heart and character and stuff like that," Sixers head coach Larry Brown said. "Well, it's past that. We've got to figure out a way to win. We've blown two opportunities to win, but I think we got to figure out a way to win and not worry about whether this is a close-out game or not." Mutombo still thinks this series would have gone in a different direction if he had been on the floor in the final 90 seconds of Game 3 after Shaquille O'Neal fouled out. With the Sixers trailing by four points, Brown replaced Mutombo with reserve guard Kevin Ollie because he wanted to apply defensive pressure and try to force a turnover. Ollie got an offensive rebound and made a three-point play, but it wasn't enough. "We made a comeback all the way to one point, then Coach tried a different lineup and the guys didn't finish the job," Mutombo said. Now the Sixers are left with trying to prevent the Lakers from celebrating a championship on their court at the First Union Center. "You never want anybody to celebrate on your home court," Eric Snow said. "We faced that the last two rounds in Game 7s. I'm not thinking about going down. We are thinking about winning Friday."
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