He may not have any knees left, but he certainly has a heart.
“I’ve been to the bottom,” Danny Manning said. “Now it seems like all the hard work is paying off.”
It paid another dividend for the Phoenix Suns Thursday as Manning’s 23 points and eight rebounds led them to an 89-85 victory over the Bulls. Manning got the defensive rebound on Michael Jordan’s attempted game-tying basket with about 7 seconds left, was fouled and hit two clinching free throws with 2.7 seconds left.
“Nobody would even know I had two major surgeries,” Manning said.
The versatile 6-foot-10-inch forward is the medical miracle of the NBA.
“I always felt I would be back,” Manning said. “I just didn’t know when.”
But he might have been the only one.
The No. 1 pick in the 1988 draft after taking Larry Brown’s Kansas team to an NCAA title, Manning suffered a major tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during his rookie season in a game in Milwaukee.
Manning recovered well enough to make two All-Star teams with the Clippers, but after signing with Phoenix as a free agent in 1994, he tore the anterior cruciate in his left knee during his first season. A torn ACL is the most serious knee damage an athlete can sustain. Few recover fully from one such injury, let alone two.
But Manning returned to play 33 games in the 1995-96 season and 77 last season, averaging 13.5 points a game.
“I never worried about what people thought,” he said. “Nobody had been in my situation before. No one had gone through what I went through. So I’m just happy to be playing the game.”
And the Suns are happy he’s playing for them. Coming off the bench most of the season, he is the Suns’ leading scorer (17.4 points a game) and rebounder (just under eight a game). And on his tender knees he’s playing just 26.5 minutes a game, fifth most on the team.
“Our energy level was great,” Suns coach Danny Ainge said after Thursday’s game. “We were able to score some points in the low post when we needed to. Cliff Robinson did a great job for us off the bench (13 points), KJ (Kevin Johnson) hit some big baskets and Danny carried us offensively throughout the game.
“I thought Danny Manning came up huge, and KJ, with those big shots. It was a great effort from those two guys.”
Ainge is still experimenting with the Suns. Thursday he started Manning for the first time this season to counter a taller Bulls lineup. Ainge also used Robinson and Mark Bryant extensively.
But it was Manning and Johnson who saved the game for the Suns. Johnson, who scored 10 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, hit three jumpers in less than 2 minutes to give the Suns an 84-77 lead with just under 2 minutes left.
“It was big to have a cushion against those guys,” Johnson said. “I remember the 1993 (Finals) Game 6 when we were up six with under 2 minutes left and lost in regulation. I knew no lead was safe against them, that even if we had a double-figures lead it wouldn’t be comfortable.
“It wasn’t exactly a flashback in my mind, but I expected them to come back. I knew (John) Paxson was sitting over there (broadcasting the game), but I wouldn’t even look at him.”
So Johnson looked toward Manning and fed him for a layup to make the score 86-79. Then the Suns held their breath as Toni Kukoc hit back-to-back three-pointers to get the Bulls within one before Manning grabbed Michael Jordan’s miss in the last 10 seconds and clinched the game with two free throws.
“I listened to Michael the other day being asked about the Bulls’ demise and saying championships are not won in November,” Johnson said. “That’s true. And it was a bigger game for us to win than for them to lose. But I had a feeling that if it were a bigger game for them, he would have made the shot. It was just too early in the year.”
Not so for the Suns, who are putting together a team that will at least cause trouble in the Western Conference. Manning, meanwhile, acts like two major knee operations are just another bump along the road.
“Everyone on the team knows how deep and talented we are,” he said. “Whoever Ainge puts in the game, you just go out and try to play hard and make things happen. That’s all I’m doing. We have a lot of depth on this tea, and we’ve played a lot of small ball. But we are capable of going big.”
And getting big production from Manning.
“It’s just a process for me,” he said of his recovery. “Nothing happens overnight. You just have to continue to work. There was no big surprise for me. I went through it all once, so I knew what I had to do. I was fortunate enough to make the All-Star team after the first operation, so it’s not the end of the world, I found out.
“It just seems like all the hard work is paying off.”
