Even Billy Cunningham's mother wrote to Maurice Cheeks, expressing her admiration for rescuing 13-year-old Natalie Gilbert from the most profound embarrassment before the Portland Trail Blazers-Dallas Mavericks N.B.A. playoff game on April 25. Helen Cunningham, the mother of the former N.B.A. star forward and coach of the 1983 champion Philadelphia 76ers, is one of the more than 1,700 people who in the last two weeks sent e-mail messages or wrote letters of appreciation to Cheeks, the Trail Blazers' reserved but effective coach.

Letters are still arriving.

But on that night, as Natalie stood near halfcourt before more than 20,000 fans in the Rose Garden in Portland and in front of national television cameras, the words to the national anthem stuck in her throat. Cheeks made the extraordinary gesture of suddenly appearing like a dream at her side and slipping a paternal arm around her shoulder while he began a duet. He then raised his right hand, as though conducting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and urged the crowd to join in, which it did, vigorously, out of relief and a shared sense of humanity.