From Downey to NBA Finals : Pro basketball: Rick Adelman, a players’ coach, says he hasn’t changed much since his early days.

Rick Adelman, coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, stands with a benign expression, slouching a little, and insists he can be a disciplinarian.

Keep probing him about it and Adelman might get really mad and, oh, raise his voice a bit or sharply arch one of his caterpillar eyebrows.

Try as he might to come off as a tough NBA taskmaster, Adelman truly is as calm and unflappable as he appears.

Portland players talk about Adelman’s “competitive fire” and say they actually have seen him rage once or twice in the locker room. But Adelman’s success in guiding the Trail Blazers to the NBA finals comes from his low-key running of a team that once was governed strictly by coaches as tight as a tennis racket.

Adelman has the Trail Blazers in a favorable position against the Detroit Pistons going into Game 3 Sunday afternoon in Portland. They split the first two games in Detroit, and the next three games are in Portland.

“I always have confidence in what this team can do,” Adelman said. “I’m not surprised we won on the road. We’ve responded all season.”

Trail Blazer players have responded positively to Adelman in his first full season as coach. On Feb. 18, 1989, when Adelman replaced Mike Schuler--the new Clipper coach--as Portland’s head man, the Trail Blazers were united only in their dislike of Schuler’s intensity and strictness.

Adelman, hired as an assistant by equally intense Jack Ramsay in 1983, had developed a warmer rapport with players, particularly star guard Clyde Drexler. That relationship has endured even though Adelman now makes the decisions.

Consciously or not, Trail Blazer players are more motivated and cohesive under Adelman than Schuler. Certainly, it is a happier group. Adelman believes unity is a major reason for Portland’s success.

“I like to coach the way I wanted to be coached when I was a player,” Adelman said. “That’s just the way I’ve approached it, and the players have responded well. It’s a player’s league. You got to get them to do what you think is the best way to win.”

Adelman often talks about “creating an atmosphere where (a) player can succeed.” He approaches it by rarely publicly criticizing an individual, by being more lenient than Schuler in allowing practice days off and by not drastically altering playing time when players are struggling.

“I try to include the players because it is as much their team as mine,” Adelman said. “I don’t feel like I’m up here and they’re down there.”

Maybe Adelman relates to players because he was a player. A journeyman guard for seven NBA seasons, Adelman was an original Trail Blazer, a starter for three seasons.

Though it has been 15 years since Adelman last played in the NBA, he remembers what goes through players’ minds, when rest is needed and even when a lecture is in order.

“He can relate to us,” Drexler said. “We think he should’ve been coach of the year. No question about it, we came together after he became coach. So many things had happened last year, we just couldn’t get it together. But Rick’s demeanor and competitive fire shows through the team. The team is a reflection of Rick.”

On Adelman’s first day as head coach, he met privately with Drexler and told him he was the team’s focal point and would be treated like others of his stature, like Magic Johnson or Larry Bird.

“I was an assistant when Clyde came, Jerome (Kersey), Terry (Porter), (Kevin) Duckworth, all those guys,” Adelman said. “We formed our own relationship. I worked hard with those guys every summer.

“When I took over, I think they felt I knew what I was doing, and they had respect for what I could do. It’s been easy. I’ve changed a little bit because now I’m the guy who makes decisions, but we always had a good understanding and mutual respect for what we did.”

Even Kersey, who was close to Schuler, said he has thrived under Adelman’s less-is-more leadership.

“He’s kept that rapport with the players, and that’s not easy,” Kersey said. “I think he understands the point that you have to relate to your players, let them know who’s in charge but give them room, too. We have that even keel as a group, and it comes from him.”

But Adelman does not pamper his players. At times, he can be a difficult boss, and coming from someone normally sedate, his occasional tantrums get the players’ attention.

“What goes on in our locker room is sometimes different than what everyone else sees on the court,” Adelman said. “Sometimes, you have to get mad. But if you do it constantly, eventually they’re going to tune you out. I always feel you get more done by being a positive supporter than by being critical. I don’t try to compare myself to Mike (Schuler) or anyone else.”

Adelman, who guided the Trail Blazers to their best record, 59-23, began the season with a one-year contract. But in March he was given a three-year extension.

“I coached the same way now as I coached in junior college,” Adelman said. “I just happen to have better players now. But I feel if you start changing the way you feel you can be effective . . . , they’re going to see through that.” Adelman says he is pretty much the same guy who grew up in Downey, starred at Loyola Marymount University in the late 1960s--before the Marymount was added--and was the Trail Blazers’ first captain.

After his NBA career ended in 1975, Adelman returned to Loyola and completed a master’s in history. But Adelman really wanted to coach, and he landed a job at Chemekta Community College in Salem, Ore. He stayed six seasons, compiling a 141-39 record and winning or sharing three Oregon community college titles.

But this is the job Adelman always wanted and, now, the one to which he seems so comfortably suited.

“You know right away if a team is listening to you, whether they believe what you say is true and whether they feel they can be successful in doing what you’re saying,” Adelman said. “This team has done that since Day 1 of training camp. I’ve had no problem with that at all. If anything, I’m kind of surprised how easy this year has been for me. I’m lucky to have come into a great team here.”