Philadelphia Fire 43-39(5-3)

Costa Mesa Condors 50-32(3-5)

Game 1 – The Costa Mesa Condors never trailed from the opening tip until the game was over. Early foul trouble and poor outside shooting plagued the Philadelphia Fire from the beginning. Dominique Wilkins shot an atrocious 9 for 27 from the floor. At the end of the 3rd Quarter the Condors were up 114-93. A relentless Philly D whittled down the Costa Mesa lead to 5 with 2:22 to go. Then the Fire flickered and went out. The Condors went on to win 152-132. Akeem Olajuwon was the MVP with 26 points, 17 rebounds, 5 blocks. Isiah Thomas had 21 points and 15 assists. Larry Nance and Cadillac Anderson each had 21 for Philly.

Game 2 – The Fire, having the better record vs the Condors during the regular season, felt confident that they could even the series in game 2. However, things started getting bad for the Fire early on with Larry Nance in foul trouble again. Poor Philly shooting and the Condors dominance of the boards (73-42) caused the Fire to trail for most of the game. The half time score was 66-58 Condors. A 42-point 4th Quarter allowed the Condors to build on their lead and coast to a 138-119 win. Isiah Thomas was the MVP (23 points, 16 Assists and 8 Rebs). Vinnie Johnson also added 23. Kareem led Philly with 28. Dominique continued his awful shooting going 8 for 23 and did not go to the line once. The series goes on to the Fire Pit, where opponents have melted away. Can Philly climb out of the hole that the Costa Mesa has put them in?

Game 3 – In this one, Dominique played better and was helped by Larry Nance’s play.  However, the Fire’s front court key players got into foul trouble early, which allowed the Condor centers to rule the boards, Akeem Olajuwon hauled down 16 boards, while his substitute, Mel Turpin, collected 10.  The first quarter was a tight, high-scoring affair with the score 46-40 in the favor of the visiting Condors.  The second quarter was a different story as the Fire’s big men’s foul trouble manifested in a 88-68 halftime score.  Philadelphia’s home crowd could not rally their squad as the Condor’s pulled away to eventually 160-129 win. As stated before Wilkins did well this game and was the game’s high scorer with 33 points.  Nance chipped in 20 pts and 8 reb on 7-8 shooting from the field.  However, the rest of the team let the Fire’s star player down by shooting well under 50%.  The visiting team had balanced scoring with 8 players with double digit points.  The Condor point guard tandem of Isiah Thomas and Rickey Green had 16 and 10 assists, respectively.  The Fire look to prevent the sweep and the end to their season at home in  game four.

Game 4 – The Condors are looking to close out the series while the Fire look to keep alive having been surprisingly dominated by an average of 23 points a game.  The Condors got their running game in gear early, with Thomas scoring 10p in the opening frame.  That usually is a bad sign for the Costa Mesa opponents.  However, the Fire take a one point lead at the 6:35 mark in the second after a 12-0 run by the hometown squad. Dominique Wilkins, Larry Nance and Johnny Dawkins are spurred on by the hometown fans while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once again gets into foul trouble.  The Condors get a little breathing room at the half with a 70-62, for another high scoring affair.  The Fire at the half are lead in scoring by Dawkins 14 with Wilkins and Nance close behind with 13 and 12, respectively.  The Condors are lead at half by Akeem Olajuwon with 21, again taking advantage of Abdul-Jabbar’s foul troubles.  The Fire ‘won’ only their second quarter in the series in the 3rd narrowing the Condor lead by 2 to 112-106 on the strength of the Fire’s threesome and Mike Woodson also chipped in.  But in the end Olajuwon continued his dominance and lead the way to Condor series sweep with a 158-144 final with a 44p, 20r and 4stl performance.  Olajuwon easily was the series MVP by averaging 28.0p, 16.3r, 3.3st, 2.3a and 1.0bl while shooting 54.2% from the field and caused total havoc to the Fire front court. The defending Western Conference champs were pleased with their performance but the reward is a likely tough match-up with an old Condor nemesis Minnesota Muskies with Charles Barkley, Kiki Vandeweghe and gang.