Pain Is Put Aside for Night : Rams: Forget being hurt. Tonight’s game against 49ers means too much for players to be on the sidelines.

Gather your limbs and ointments, Rams and 49ers, your tape, tonics and courage. Get a note from your witch doctor if that’s what it takes.

Save your hides against Atlanta and Phoenix, but don’t miss the bus tonight. Drag a leg, Henry Ellard. Take the needle, Joe Montana. Isn’t that what showdowns are all about? Go the extra yard, look the other way, beat ‘em in the trainer’s room too.

“Whatever it takes,” said Ram receiver Ellard, willing to sit out two games with a hamstring strain but not a third.

Not this third.

“Wrap it up,” he said. “Go out and do what you can, and hopefully it will hold up for you.”

You put in serious whirlpool time for the 49ers, Ellard explained. There is more than a divisional title at stake. An enemy approaches. Ellard’s hamstring, it turns out, is rounding into shape. Good thing, because he was going to play regardless.

“It would take quite a bit to keep me out of this one, that’s for sure,” Ellard said. “Even if I was hurting a little more than I am now, I’d find some way to get myself out there to be part of it.”

Quarterback Joe Montana, who in his time has taken the field with a few screws tightened (in his back, after surgery)--and possibly a few screws loose--pulled himself out of last week’s game against the Falcons with ribs so tender they didn’t need more forearm seasoning.

Tonight, he will take a painkilling injection. Then, he will take his chances against a Ram pass rush that has sacked 49er quarterbacks 11 times in the last two regular-season meetings, both Ram victories.

Whatever it takes. These are Rams, not Falcons.

“It’s kind of hard to sit him down, period, no matter who we’re playing,” 49er Coach George Seifert said of Montana. “He wants to be in there. He wants to be involved. Naturally, the enthusiasm about a game like this, it gets the adrenaline going even that much more.”

Seifert walks a fine line with Montana, a quarterback so brilliant, yet so brittle. If adhesive tape and a flak jacket can keep him together, Montana, at 116.1, will shatter the NFL’s single-season efficiency rating for quarterbacks set by Milt Plum of the Cleveland Browns, 110.4 in 1960.

Or, he may just shatter.

“There’s been times that he has been hurt and has played,” Seifert said, “but I’ve got to give him his leeway, too. The man’s been in the game some time. He knows what he can and can’t do, and the way he feels. As the coach, I can’t say I know more about his body than he does. And if he feels he can go, then he should go.”

Besides, Montana has a hex over Anaheim Stadium that could work like salve on his ribs. He is 7-0 as a starting quarterback against the Rams there. Montana has averaged 22 completions, 32 attempts and 302 yards in those games. So what’s a teeny-weeny hypodermic to the rib cage?

Also at stake is the divisional title, even though the 49ers lead the Rams by two games with three to go. The 49ers clinched no worse than a wild-card playoff berth Sunday, and, with a win, they clinch the NFC West tonight. A loss, though, would force them to win one of their remaining two games against the Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears, providing the Rams finish up with victories over the New York Jets and New England.

The Rams are looking to keep hope alive.

They received more motivation Sunday when Kansas City defeated Green Bay at Lambeau Field.

Now, with a victory over the 49ers, the Rams clinch at least a wild-card playoff berth.

And though they don’t control their destiny in the division, and must consider that a 12-4 record might not win the title, the Rams have stayed close, convincing themselves they are the last sign-post between the 49ers and back-to-back Super Bowl titles.

San Francisco has won 18 of its last 21 games, including three playoff victories last season. Two of those defeats came in Candlestick Park against the Rams--38-16 last December, and 13-12 on Oct. 1. Green Bay handed the 49ers their other loss.

The Rams also defeated the 49ers in Tokyo last summer, but we’re counting in English here.

This has become a rivalry played for more than just divisional motives. If not, the Rams could white-wash their lone NFC Western Division title flag for the decade, 1985, in a show of surrender.

No, this rivalry is rooted in longevity and proximity, with all the differences of Northern and Southern California encompassed. Intertwined also has been a long-nurturing Ram inferiority complex, born of the 49ers’ extravagance in areas of travel and payroll, versus the Rams’ relative fiscal conservatism.

San Francisco safety Ronnie Lott played for Ram Coach John Robinson at USC and says his team’s rivalry with the Rams reminds him of one he participated in as a Trojan.

“I remember John used to tell us when we’d play UCLA that we could play the game right out there on Exposition Boulevard,” Lott said. “Well, the same goes for this game. There’s much more that goes into this football game than the division title. It’s the respect you try to get from the Rams. Each time we walk on the field, you know this is your archrival and the game goes much deeper than the division title. . . . This game could be played anywhere. We know what it’s about.”

Ram Notes

The 49ers have won seven of the last eight games in Anaheim, the only Rams’ win coming in 1986 when they beat backup quarterback Jeff Kemp, 16-13. Joe Montana missed the game with a back injury. . . . Flipper Anderson needs three receiving yards to reach 1,000, which would give the Rams two 1,000-yard receivers (Henry Ellard has 1,176) in the same season for the first time in franchise history. . . . Ram Coach John Robinson on his team’s running game of late: “We can’t get from here to the damn bathroom running the ball.”

Former Coach Bill Walsh is telling people this year’s 49er team is better than last year’s Super Bowl champion. “I’ve only heard one guy say that and that was Bill Walsh,” safety Ronnie Lott said. “When that analogy was made, a lot of guys were joking about it, saying, ‘Yeah it’s better because he’s gone.’ But all in all, I don’t know if this team is better.” . . . Montana is a lock as this year’s Pro Bowl starter, but the race for the backup quarterback spot should be heated between the Rams’ Jim Everett and Green Bay’s Don Majkowski. Everett led the NFL in touchdowns passes last season and didn’t make it. Pro Bowl voting takes place next week.

After rushing for 512 yards in his first five games, Greg Bell needs to average 57.6 yards per game in the final three to reach 1,000 for the season. . . . What Ram receiver does Lott fear most? Anderson? Ellard? Nope. “(Pete) Holohan’s been the top receiver to me as far as making the clutch catch, ever since he’s been there,” Lott said. Lott may remember Holohan catches of 31 and 16 yards in the Rams’ game-winning, 72-yard drive against the 49ers in October. . . . Believe it or not, 49er backup Steve Young has a better quarterback rating than Montana (143.7 to 116.1), who is on a record-setting pace. . . . Montana has been sacked 29 times this season, Everett 28.