Going Like Blazers

Heretofore, Neal's major notoriety had come from his altercations with Laker fan Jack Nicholson in the Los Angeles Forum ("Sit down, fool!" Neal yelled at the actor, who was blocking his view from the bench), but this season Neal's rescue missions are of spine-tingling stuff.

In the four games in which he has played more than 30 minutes, Neal has scored 31, 33, 21 and 10 points, the last coming in a victory at Boston he clinched with three overtime baskets. Last Friday Neal was in street clothes resting his sore knees when Lucas was thrown out of the game for flunking a vocabulary test with the referees. But wait! Neal into the dressing room. Neal into the game. Neal 13 points in 16 minutes.

Owens, too, has provided R and R for the front line both at forward and center. A skinny and much-traveled ABA veteran who once was labeled "the advance man for a famine," Owens has found a home in Portland, where he has used his intelligence as well as his passing and scoring ability (13 games in double figures) to blend into the Blazer system. "Playing 12 minutes here is like playing 20 anywhere else, the center participates so much," Owens says.

As any of the local woodchoppers would tell you, however, there is another center who must participate for the Blazers to continue devastating the NBA. Though he does not lead the league in rebounding or blocked shots, as he has before, Bill Walton is playing a more complete defensive game. With the metal pin having been removed from his left wrist, Walton is also varying his offensive game to a great extent, setting up on the right side, hooking both ways. "The difference is I have two hands now instead of one," he says. "Two hands for shooting, passing, carrying the groceries, everything."

Also for shielding his privacy from the dastardly designs of the horrible, prying media. The other day at the airport Walton put both hands over the lens of a TV camera when a national network tried to take a picture of older son Adam, who was there to meet the Blazers' plane.

Be that as it may, Walton seems more relaxed and comfortable with the opposition, which is to say anyone unacquainted with the Grateful Dead. Last week, between favoring a banquet audience with some self-mockery, smashing a journalist in the face with a marsh-mallow pie on McKinney's closed-circuit pregame show and admitting he was "happy and excited" to be going to the All-Star Game, Walton gave the impression that he has finally accepted more responsibility in the public sector.

Walton always has maintained a joyful spontaneity with coaches and teammates. No longer "the Chief," a moniker that seemed to hold contrary meanings he didn't appreciate, Walton has been renamed "Beaver" (by Twardzik)—not in tribute to his teeth but after his middle name, Theodore, which was Beaver Cleaver's real name on Leave ft to Beaver.

In practice last week Beaver and Fudd and the rest of the once and future champions interrupted their march toward immortality long enough to ridicule anew the vivid ensembles of "our bald-headed emperor," to play soccer against the scorer's table and to balance as many balls as they could on the basket rim. The Blazers piled 10 up there before all the balls came tumbling down.

"What is the purpose of this?" said Ramsay, who had wandered over to investigate the uproar.

"Guinness. Guinness," called out Walton, referring to the book of world records. Which was only fitting.