The Week In Tv Sports

Highlights

SATURDAY 4/28

? NBA Playoffs, Conference Quarterfinals
NBC SUNDAY 12:30 PM
A wise man once said, "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take," a maxim Sixers guard Allen Iverson heeds as if it were tattooed on his shooting arm. Instead, that limb bears the inscription HOLD MY OWN, which is what Pacers guard Travis Best will attempt to do against the Answer in today's Game 3 of the best-of-five Indiana- Philadelphia series. The third games of the Jazz-Mavericks and Spurs-Timberwolves series follow.

?Cubs at Giants
WGN 4 PM
This matchup between division leaders (as of Sunday) could spark memories of the 1989 National League Championship Series, when Will Clark singled off Mitch Williams with the bases loaded to propel San Francisco into the World Series. This year's drama could include Giants slugger Barry Bonds, the newest member of the 500-homer club, launching a bomb off the Cubs' newly minted closer (and who'd-a-thunk-it Rotisserie star) Jeff Fassero, propelling fans into the waters of McCovey Cove in pursuit of the ball.

?Penn Relays
ESPN2 5:30 PM
The three-day Penn Relay Carnival, as it's officially known, is the Mardi Gras of track and field. More than 22,000 athletes descend on Philadelphia's Franklin Field to chug insane amounts of Gatorade, strip down to their Lycra bodysuits and get as nutty as, say, pole vaulters can get. The showcase will be the U.S.A. versus the world relays, in which Maurice Greene, Michael Johnson and Marion Jones are scheduled to appear. Expect winners to raise their arms in response to chants of "Show your pits! Show your pits!"

Dont't Miss

SATURDAY 4/28, SUNDAY 4/29
?61* and The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
HBO SATURDAY 9 PM; CINEMAX SUNDAY 7:30 PM
A Bronx-themed twin bill: Yankees fans will wallow in 61* and its melodramatic look at Mickey Mantle's and Roger Maris's runs at Babe Ruth's home run record in 1961. For the rest of us, the two-hour TV movie is worth watching for the tightly wound Maris portrayed by Barry Pepper (above) and Thomas Jane's amusingly dead-on Mantle. Jane inhabits the Mick, due no doubt in part to director Billy Crystal's friendship with the late Mantle. Less schmaltzy is Aviva Kempner's enthralling 90-minute 1998 documentary on the Bronx-born slugger Greenberg, who as baseball's first Jewish star battled the prejudice of fans and other players.