BRIEFLY : ARE THEY SERIOUSLY TALKING?

Byline: - Daily News Wire Services

Will it be a serious negotiating session or another day of public posturing? That is the question as NBA owners and players prepared Thursday to resume collective-bargaining talks today at a Manhattan hotel.

It will be the first time in more than three weeks that each side's full negotiating committee will be present.

``My hope is that the owners will be inclined to move off their number and to really talk seriously about trying to reach some accord,'' union director Billy Hunter said.

Deputy commissioner Russ Granik did not give a rosy forecast.

``There will be no new proposal,'' he said, responding to a rumor that the owners would put something new on the table. ``That rumor has been out there for a few days, but it's not true. But that's not to say something won't come out of the meeting, because we're going in prepared to negotiate.''

HOCKEY: Tampa Bay right wing Andrei Nazarov was suspended without pay for seven games for hitting Colorado defenseman Cam Russell in the face with his stick Saturday.

The suspension is the largest handed out by Colin Campbell, the NHL's senior vice president and director of hockey operations, since he took the job in July.

Nazarov received a match penalty, which is subject to an automatic review by the league, for deliberate attempt to injure on the play during.

``The action by Nazarov was deliberate and reckless,'' Campbell said. ``The length of the suspension reaffirms the league's position that this type of conduct warrants severe disciplinary action.''

Russell was forced to leave the game and needed 18 stitches to close two cuts on his face.

Nazarov, who was also fined $1,000, has already sat out one game while awaiting the review and will miss Tampa Bay's next six games. The 6-foot-5, 230-pounder has 27 penalty minutes and one assist in 11 games this season.

GOLF: Trying to salvage what is left of a miserable year, Laura Davies found some short game to go with her long drives for a 6-under 66 that gave her the lead after the first round of the LPGA Tour Championship in Las Vegas.

Davies, winless in 20 months on the tour, has not had a first-round lead all year.

Nick Faldo and John Daly were happy with their sub-par rounds in the opening round of the World Cup of Golf in New Zealand, but they were upstaged by Japan's Yasuharu Imano, who fired an 8-under 64 and helped his country take the lead in the 32-nation team event.

Faldo, at 5-under 31 through the opening nine, finished with a 68. Daly shot a 70, including an eagle at the par-5 sixth.

Former University of Arizona star Ted Purdy had a 5-under 67 at the Weiskopf Course at PGA West in La Quinta to lead in the PGA qualifying school.

The top 35 players and ties at the end of the six-day, 108-hole tournament that finishes Monday earn exemptions to the PGA Tour next year. The next 50 players are fully exempt to the developmental Nike Tour. The rest of the 169-player field has a conditional exemption for the Nike circuit.

Justin Rose improved to a 1-over-par 73 in his bid to qualify for a European PGA Tour card, but the star of this year's British Open had more than 50 places to make up in Sotogrande, Spain.

The 18-year-old Englishman had a two-round total of 151 and was tied for 131st place, a long way from making Saturday's four-round cut of 75 players.

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