The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 15

Fl-r wma PORT Monday May 30 1994 SECTION oos CThc CChartotte (Dbserucr win Tir riv rj nn mfr nr Ewing goes for kinder J- kj Yl A I wfi if 181 WT '3 V' i mr and gentler By GEORGE VECSEY New York Times INDIANAPOLIS Believe it or not at this late stage in his career there is something new to be said about Patrick Ewing Patrick Ewing raconteur Patrick Ewing wise old head Patrick Ewing team spokesman Over the past two weeks Patrick Ewing has been more comfortable with himself than ever This cannot hurt the Knicks as they lead the Indiana Pacers 2-1 going into game In his four years under John Thompson at Georgetown Ewing learned to give only his name rank and serial number and some of us thought it stunted him Ewing would sit at a microphone high on a dais looking down at us like the lord high executioner and he would respond to most questions by saying you repeat the With the Knicks he has usually been monosyllabic although there was evidence of ari ordered healthy loyal real life People change people grow and during the playoffs Ewing has had four separate embarrassing incidents yet he has responded with openness and humor In the wake of humbling loss in which Ewing scored exactly one point we swarmed into the cramped locker room and he was sitting there waiting to take the charge Basketball players' feet tend to stick way out in these inadequate rooms and you want to be the poor jerk who got pushed forward by the mob and landed on toes Anyway Ewing was fine More than fine Many of his specific remarks about the game were noted in the quick-rush articles but there was more: Since he deflects personal praise when he has a great game I asked him does that mean he spreads the blame when the Knicks stink out the joint? Pause Eye contact Big smile pay me to be the hero They pay me to be the goat" It was a big-time gesture even bigger than an athlete thumping his chest and saying am the People asked whether Ewing had ever scored only one point and he dredged up a painful memory one point in his first high school game He even dredged up the opponent Boston College High School I asked him what his coach Mike Jarvis now of George Washington University had said and Ewing recalled back strong the next And did he? first reaction was understandably that he did not recall But then he gave a pause and he replied yeah I got 50 points and I blocked 20 Everybody around him roared with laughter Believe me he has not always been a lot of yuks He has been on a psychic roll for weeks He was available the day he was thrown out of a playoff game against the Nets The night he bricked two late foul shots he offered to buy Hubert Davis a car for bailing him out When Davis opted for a Mercedes Ewing reneged with good timing The day Ewing went scoreless in the first half against the Bulls he celebrated banishing Bill Cartwright from his life forever miss Mr Bill clawing and shoving me" Ewing said albeit respectfully Ewing was still chuckling over not missing after victory over the Pacers in Game 1 He was willing to talk about his Madison Square Garden counterpart Mark Messier guaranteeing a victory was a bold statement" Ewing said with admiration he did everything he had to do to win And Ewing admitted he was looking toward never gotten" the finals maybe a championship Why this change in Patrick Ewing? Last Thursday night while walking down a ramp in the Garden I spotted Ewing with his wife of four years Rita Williams Their daughter Randi just turned 3 was toddling along at knee level (Ewing is also a very involved father of an older son Patrick Jr) "Now I see why you're so I said pointing at the little girl in bright ribbons hanging on to her hand He smiled again DAVIE HINSHAWStaff End of a long day: A broken crank shaft ended John Indianapolis 500 where he finished 10th then flew to minutes before the race started The Observer's Tom Andretti's day early sort of He competed in the Charlotte in time for the Coca-Coal 600 arriving 11 Sorensen tagged along for the trip Story1 A Gordon 22 cashes in on 2-tire gamble By TOM HIGGINS Staff Writer Jeff Gordon and his Hendrick Motorsports pit gamble on a late two-tire pit stop gave Gordon his first NASCAR Winston Cup victory Sunday night in a Coca-Cola 600 that appeared to belong to Rusty Wallace Wallace dominating the last half of the race in a Ford pitted to take on four tires on the 376th of 400 laps at Charlotte Motor Speedway Gordon came in on Lap 380 and his crew led by Ray Evernham opted to change only the right-side tires After Ricky Rudd stopped for gas on Lap 390 Gordon swept into the lead and pulled away in his Chevrolet to finish 391 seconds ahead of runner-up Wallace is the highest feeling in the world" said Gordon 22 the first 600 winner from the pole since hall of famer David Pearson in 1976 Completing the top five were Geoff Bodine Ford Dale Jarrett Chevrolet and Ernie Irvan Ford victory denied team owner Roger Penske a sweep of the Indianapolis 500 and the 600 in the same day A1 Unser Jr won the 500 in a Penske car The race went the first 150 laps with John spin in Turn 4 on Lap 91 bringing out the only caution But the yellow flag flew five more times in the next 41 laps including for a multi-car crash on Lap 191 between Turns 3 and 4 The wreck involving eight cars came just after a restart Mark Martin was trying to unlap himself when he cut the left rear tire on his Ford and had to slow going down the backstretch Martin used a hand signal to indicate to following drivers that he had to slow and get to the inside but traffic blocked him When Dale Earnhardt caught up to Martin Please see 600page 8B INSIDE Monster engine helps Little A1 come up big Rockets overcome errors timekeeper to topple Jazz NBA playoffs By CHRIS SHERIDAN Associated Press Jl By JOSEPH SIANO New York Times More inside Indianapolis 500 results more covoragepage 7B RESULT Houston 80 Utah 78 (Houston leads series 3-1) The Atlanta Braves trade outfielder Deion Sanders to Cincinnati for outfielder Roberto Kelly and a pitcher Sanders is hitting 288 with four home runs and 21 RBIs Kelly is hitting 302 with three home runs and 21 RBIspage 5B Pete Sampras and Jim Courier are winners in the French Opennext page GAME SALT LAKE CITY Hakeem Olajuwon Sam Cassell and Wayne Hicken made stupid mistakes in the final 30 seconds Sunday and each almost cost the Houston Rockets a playoff victory Olajuwon missed a layup he have attempted Cassell committed an inexcusable foul with 135 seconds left and Hicken the Delta Center timekeeper forgot to start the clock in the last sequence of the game The Rockets managed to survive and won Game 4 of the Western Conference finals 80-78 to take a New York at Indiana 3:30 (New York leads series 2-1) GAME INDIANAPOLIS Blame rules or credit Roger Penske Penske's Mercedes engine turned Indianapolis 500 into a two-car race from the start It became a one-car race on Lap 185 when Emerson Fittipaldi crashed while leading giving teammate AI Unser Jr his second Indy victory Before the crash it looked as if Fittipaldi would win his third 500 and the second straight for himself and Penske He was a few car lengths from Utah at Houston putting second-place Unser a lap down but as Fittipaldi went too low into Turn 4 hitting the indentations in the pavement that serve as a warning strip The warning came too late "I tried to go a little lower than AI and I hit the corrugations" Fittipaldi said "and I lost the back Please see 500page 7B 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series Houston can win its first confer- Please see Playoffspage 10B i I.