Lakers Will Try to Remain in the Picture : Pro basketball: They still have hopes of winning the Pacific Division, but Portland can clinch a tie for the title today.

About this time a year ago, Pat Riley rested his Laker regulars here, sent in the clowns . . . and was fined $25,000 by the NBA office.

Today, the Lakers are trying it the other way, with Mike Dunleavy lining up the Trail Blazers in his sights, still talking of bringing them down. The problem is, the Trail Blazers are vanishing from the Lakers’ range at a high rate of speed.

Winners of 12 in a row, coming off a 6-0 trip including a 3-0 sweep in Texas and owners of a three-game lead, the Trail Blazers can clinch a tie for the Pacific Division title by winning today.

The Trail Blazers play four of their last five games at home, including dates with the Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic.

“We always knew, going in, whatever happened, happened,” Magic Johnson said. “They were going to be the team to beat. Even if they had a bad road trip, everybody knew they were the team to beat in the West.

“We all knew, if you were going to get out of there, you’d have to go through (Portland) one way or the other. They just alerted everybody they’re for real.”

Said Portland Coach Rick Adelman: “The wheels did not fall off this team in March, although a lot of people thought they did.”

The wheels were getting pretty wobbly, though.

The Trail Blazers’ 19-1 start inevitably bred complacency. By March, their fast break had slowed to a crawl, their offensive rebounding had turned feeble and their hot three-point shooting was a memory.

On March 19, they lost for the eighth time in 11 games, and the Lakers, 8 1/2 games out five weeks before, moved into first place.

At that point, however, the Lakers had problems with some wheels of their own--Johnson’s. He hurt his knees in Seattle and that terminated their occupancy of the top spot after 24 hours.

Johnson sat out the next game, and the Lakers lost to the lackluster Milwaukee Bucks at the Forum.

The Trail Blazers were still having problems of their own.

On March 27, they fell 24 points behind the Seattle SuperSonics in a game at Tacoma, but somehow tightened up their defense and rallied to win.

Two nights later, at the Forum, they did it again, falling 21 points behind in the third quarter, taking only 7:21 to catch up, falling behind, 92-84, with 3:40 left in regulation, catching up again, winning in overtime. Dunleavy has referred to it as a “big-time letdown,” but for the Lakers, it was also a death blow.

The Lakers are on a six-game winning streak, but the Trail Blazers’ improbable rallies had already launched them out of sight. The Blazers are the first team since the Boston Celtics in 1987 to make a three-game sweep of Texas.

“I don’t think we’re totally there offensively yet,” Adelman says. “But I’d say defensively, we’re really starting to get consistent. I like our intensity at the defensive end. But I’ll take 12 straight wins if you’re playing good or bad.

“These guys want it again. You can tell. That’s the most important thing.”

Today, either the Lakers will derail this express--or what the Trail Blazers want, the Trail Blazers are going to get.