For Reggie Miller, Time of Change : UCLA Basketball Gunner Is Attempting to Keep Brashness and Temper Holstered

Reggie Miller swears that he is a changed man.

Consider the evidence: Here is a gunner who is still squeezing the trigger from great distances, the breathtaking Reggie range, that’s true. But Miller has abandoned his old motto, “Shoot till you droop.” He also is on his best behavior.

How is it working out? So far so good.

When Miller sends up one of those flares right in a defender’s face, at least he’s nice about it now. He doesn’t laugh at, taunt or otherwise point out to his opponent the utter futility of playing defense against him.

Talking on defense is permissible--”I might say, ‘I don’t think you should do that.’ “--but Reggie’s rule about talking now is never on offense.

“I’m not like (Larry) Bird and talk on offense,” Miller said. “That can get you hurt. I’m not stupid.”

OK, what about elbows? We hear there are a lot of those going around these days, too. Miller has a couple of them and he’s not afraid to use either. But only in retaliation, he says.

There have been no displays of the Miller temper this season, unlike last year, when Arizona Coach Lute Olson suggested that perhaps Reggie needed a personality transplant.

Check that. There was one incident. It was in Seattle against Washington when the 6-foot 7-inch Miller got angry at a Husky player, 6-1 guard Al Moscatel.

Reggie said he was tired of hearing Moscatel whine. And throw elbows. And grab Miller’s jersey.

“Now that’s a dirty player,” Miller said. “I can take it, but not from a little guy that comes in the paint.”

So Miller tripped him. On purpose, but out of sight of the officials. Moscatel went flying and lost the ball, which was then awarded to UCLA.

Reggie said he hadn’t been ugly with Moscatel. On the contrary, Miller said that the incident illustrates just how much he has changed, matured and mellowed.

“If that had happened in my sophomore or junior years, I would have knocked him out,” Miller said.

Yes, he has come a long way.

Who is the leader of this season’s UCLA team?

Pooh Richardson?

He’s only a sophomore.

Hazzard?

He’s only a coach. He can’t play.

Reggie?

No question about it. Just ask him.

“Other teams fear me so much, just my being out there,” he said. “I could even be playing on my deathbed and I’d worry them.

“I like being in the pressure cooker. All these other guys, they still have a couple of years left, but I don’t. So if there’s a last shot to be taken, a rebound to be got, maybe a turnover or a mistake to be made, a pass to be thrown, then let it happen to me.

“I’ve been there. I’m not afraid. I’m a leader. I got to lead these guys. I’ll let them hop on my back. I’m the All-American and I’m setting an example.”

So far in Miller’s senior season, UCLA is 7-4 and 2-2 in the Pacific 10, with a game tonight in Tempe against Arizona State. Then the Bruins will play Arizona Sunday afternoon in Tucson, where Miller and Olson can renew their acquaintance.

Since it’s hard to overlook, people tend to notice Miller’s scoring average. He is averaging 30.3 points a game in conference play and shooting a rather remarkable 57.3%, Reggie range and all. Overall, Miller’s average is 23.4 points and he is shooting 54.4%.

But Miller wants people to look beyond his points and find the real Reggie.

“I can see where people think all I do is score 30 points a game,” he said. “I have to do that for us to win. But people don’t know some things.

“People don’t know I lead the team in steals. People don’t know I’m second on the team in assists. People don’t know I’m second on the team in rebounds. People don’t look any farther than the 30-point average.”

Miller’s season averages of 2.2 assists, 2 steals and 4.6 rebounds, the latter third behind center Jack Haley’s 5.1 and Richardson’s 5, are noteworthy considering the scoring burden he carries.

Hazzard said, though, that Miller’s image is just fine with him. “He doesn’t want to be considered a gunner,” Hazzard said. “As far as I’m concerned, he can gun it any time he wants to.”

Hazzard even wishes Miller would shoot more often. Miller is averaging only 14.5 shots a game, or three fewer than last year, when there wasn’t the added enticement of the three-point line.

“Fourteen isn’t enough,” Hazzard said. “I expect him to do a lot more. Anytime he catches the ball and turns to face the basket, he strikes fear in the hearts of the opponents. He’s got to make the other teams think about him.

“People have to accept and his teammates have to expect that he’s going to shoot X number of times. I remember when I was playing with Gail Goodrich, if you passed the ball to him on the break, you knew he wouldn’t pass it back. But he made a lot of shots.”

Except for UCLA’s games at St. John’s and Temple, when Miller played despite a sprained ankle and then the flu, and two odd games against Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Fullerton, Miller has scored consistently well.

Against Long Beach and Fullerton, Miller was totally out of character. He shot only eight times in one game and just seven in the other. He explained that he was trying to get his teammates more involved in the offense when Hazzard was making lineup changes.

“I wasn’t looking for my shot,” Miller said. “It might have been a mistake.

“The coaches were really, really, really mad. They could have killed me. That’s Pooh’s game, setting everybody else up. That’s not my game.”

But is the game Miller talks really a lot different? He might have changed, but he still has an opinion on just about everything.

About coaches’ decisions: “We have a lot of players who want to play and a lot of talent. The last couple of years, all they wanted was talent, and now that they’ve got it, they don’t want it anymore.”

About playing guard: “People don’t know I have passes like Pooh. If, God forbid, Pooh broke his foot, I know I could run this team.”

About his offense: “Forwards are either too tall and I’m too quick for them or guards are too small and I shoot over them.”

Miller, though, can back up his talk, at least enough to impress important people. Laker General Manager Jerry West, for instance, projects Reggie as a high first-round draft choice as an off-guard.

“The only question is how quickly he can make the transition to playing guard,” West said. “He can’t play small forward. He’s too small. He can handle the ball well enough to play guard.

“I think he’s going to be a very fine pro. He really plays with a lot of emotion.”

There’s that word, emotion. So is Miller really a changed man?

“I like to give off that sense,” he said. “My first couple of years, I was more flamboyant, more cocky. I said a lot of things in the heat of the battle, things you can’t put in a newspaper.

“People say I’m cold, that I’m impersonal on the court. Well, let me tell you, it’s blood and guts out there. People say I have a terrible attitude out there. But I don’t think so anymore. Right now, I think I’m back to normal.

“I want to blow somebody out.”

That somebody may be Lute Olson.

Miller is looking forward to UCLA’s game Sunday against Arizona as a chance to silence one of his more vocal critics.

Last season at Pauley Pavilion, Miller was called for an intentional foul after throwing his left elbow at Arizona guard Craig McMillan. Miller said later that McMillan had also elbowed him and that he was just trying to keep McMillan off his back.

But Olson was outspoken in his criticism of Miller, saying that Miller had purposely tried to hurt McMillan. Olson even wondered aloud whether McMillan should have taken legal action against Miller.

“Obviously, he can’t handle frustration,” Olson said. “A person with courage wouldn’t do something like that.”

Olson also said the Bruins had an ego problem--Miller’s.

What does Miller have to say about all this?

Only this: “You’ve always got to remember there are two sides to the coin and I’ll be back to play you again. Don’t forget me. I’ll be back.”

The old Reggie probably would have offered a more outrageous comment.

The new Reggie says he is too busy being elder statesman, team leader, role model and, of course, shooter.

Hazzard says he isn’t at all surprised that Miller has embraced his new responsibilities.

“It’s what comes with trying to be an All-American,” he said. “You only get this chance once in a lifetime. It’s his time.”

And if people continue to see him as brash, cocky, arrogant and flamboyant?

“All I am is confident,” Miller said. “People think I’m awful, but when I do the things I do or say the things I say, I’m just being confident. That’s the way I’m trying to play this year. People got me wrong.

“Look, without confidence, where are you at? Especially in this line of work. I’ve been pretty successful, I’d say, so if this is what being confident is all about, I like this thing. I must be doing something right.”