NBA PLAYOFFS : In the West, It’s a Real Shootout : Lakers: Showdown that has been brewing all season begins today at the Rip City corral, the Trail Blazers’ home.

Now, for the mother of Western finals.

In this place sanity forgot, today’s start of the Laker-Trail Blazer matchup, the so-called real NBA finals, is almost too much to bear.

Blazermaniacs are out putting “Rip City” on all available surfaces. The team, alarmed at the infringement of a phrase coined by its radio announcer, asked the police to enforce its copyright.

The cops’ dragnet busted the Rip City Diner, a local bank, and even Kathy Adelman, daughter of Trail Blazer Coach Rick, who was selling T-shirts on the University of Portland campus.

For the Lakers, playing a Western team without the home-court advantage for the first time in the Magic Johnson era, it’s a challenge.

For the Trail Blazers, it’s a chance at payback.

You wouldn’t say the Trail Blazers have been playing Avis to the Lakers’ Hertz. The Trail Blazers were more like Budget or Rent-a-Wreck.

They finished second to the Lakers five times in the ‘80s, by an average margin of 11 games.

When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989, the Lakers had won 32 of 40 regular-season meetings and 11 of 13 playoff games.

Ah, Lakers, how did they love thee?

“I hated ‘em,” says Mychal Thompson, a Trail Blazer from 1978-86.

“Those guys were our archrivals--even though nobody ever noticed.

“We were envious. At least I was. The Lakers made the game look so easy. They looked so pretty. They were pretty boys.”

All this ended in the summer of 1990 when Buck Williams arrived, bearing the missing piece to the Trail Blazer puzzle. An archrivalry both sides would be aware of was about to begin.

“It was amazing,” Williams says. “It was almost like the Lakers had stolen something from the Portland area.

“It was very easy to understand. The Lakers had terrorized the Western Conference over the years. After being kicked around for so long, Trail Blazer management had enough and went and signed some players.”

The Trail Blazers won 59 games last season, second to the Lakers’ 63.

This season, the Trail Blazers won the 63, the Lakers the 59.

The Trail Blazers claimed to have seen this coming in October, when the teams played that alleged exhibition in Honolulu, left the scrubs on the bench and tried to send each other messages.

“It was a preliminary to the Western Conference finals,” Williams says, grinning.

“The Lakers came out motivated to prove something to the Trail Blazers. We came out to prove to them we’re still here. Everything was inverted. Everything flopped. In other years, we would get motivated to play the Lakers. This time, they got motivated to play us.”

The Lakers accept the fact that they are underdogs.

They also know their best game can beat Portland, so they are not exactly intimidated.

“You just want to be here whether you’re the hunter or the huntee,” says Magic Johnson, the veteran of nine Western finals.

“It’s really thrown out the window. It’s just basketball now. You know in your mind you’re playing the best.

“They know they’re playing the Lakers.”

MATCHUPS

Remember, the game is not an aggregate of pluses and minuses at various positions but a test of which team plays best together.

But here goes:

Center--Vlade Divac had a fine series against Houston, then disappeared when the Warriors’ Don Nelson used guards Mitch Richmond and Sarunas Marciulionis on him. Divac couldn’t take them in the low post, where his game is rudimentary.

Divac does better against the hulking 7-foot, newly-reduced to 260-pound Kevin Duckworth, but not always.

In the season’s first meeting, Divac scored 21 points with 13 rebounds.

In the next four games he had a total of 30 points and 17 rebounds.

Says Johnson, Divac’s inspirational leader: “We can’t have that. If he gets 17 rebounds, this series will be over fast.”

Duckworth is a marginal rebounder and defender but a dangerous scorer. He averaged 18 points against the Lakers this season, 15.8 overall.

Edge: Duckworth until Divac proves different.

Power forward--Last spring the Sam Perkins-Jerome Kersey match, won by Kersey, resulted in a 3-0 Trail Blazer romp over Dallas.

This is a different season.

Perkins is back to playing big forward, where he belongs. He has had a fine season and a better postseason, bumping his numbers to 19 points a game and 64% shooting.

He is up against Williams, the prototype of the modern big forward, only faintly diminished at 31. He’s a strong rebounder, if not the 10-plus man he was in the first seven seasons he wasted in New Jersey. He won’t take a shot he can’t make, shot 60% this season and averaged 12 points. He is still hungry after all these years and Perkins will have his long arms full.

Edge: Standoff. Williams is stronger, Perkins better all-around.

Small forward--James Worthy lost a lot of open-court opportunities when the curtain came down on Showtime and shot a career-low 49% this season.

This was not only the first time he had ever finished under 50%, it was the first time he had ever been under 53%.

Once the whirling dervish of the low post with 10-foot range, he now settles for more jump shots, but his range extends to the three-point line. He remains a scorer with mental toughness. He can miss his first 10 shots, but he will keep firing.

Kersey is a fine athlete, a great runner, jumper, hustler and offensive rebounder. Only a fair outside shooter, he isn’t shy about taking them.

Edge: Worthy, but the Lakers need him to be Big Game James.

Point guard--The Lakers have Johnson, of whom little more need be said.

Johnson averaged a triple-double against the Warriors but shot only 42%, and in his last three games, 34%.

“The thing about me, I’m going to keep shooting,” he says, carefree as usual. “Those who worry about it, stay in it. I’m not one of those guys who relies on 25-footers. I can get myself easy shots to get myself going.”

The Trail Blazers have Terry Porter, a mortal but a highly evolved one.

Porter’s game has no holes. He is a fine ballhandler, outside shooter and driver. He is hard-nosed and unselfish. He makes big plays at the end of games. His poise can be measured by his technical fouls; he is the only Trail Blazer starter who doesn’t accumulate them by the dozen.

Says Nelson: “He’s the heart and soul of their team. I love him.”

Edge: Magic, but it’s no walkover.

Off guard--Byron Scott’s numbers were modest but his outside shooting is the hammer the Lakers use on opponents double-teaming Johnson, Worthy et. al.

Right now, Scott is hot--50% in the playoffs, 61% on three-pointers. Nelson paid him the compliment of playing the Laker post game “honestly”--one on one--rather than let Scott shoot open 18-footers.

Even at this late date, you will get an argument on Clyde Drexler.

Some contend he had his best season and belongs high in the MVP balloting.

Some complain he still takes too many bad shots and plays when he feels like it. An Eastern Conference general manager goes so far as to label him a “weak link.”

Beyond argument, Drexler has skills only seen among the elite, amazing grace and athleticism. He made a reverse layup in the first Laker game this season that had them talking for days. He goes where he wants when he wants; if his shots drop, he is unstoppable. If they don’t, Portland can be beaten.

Drexler is beyond courage. It is nothing to see him start a game by missing his first seven shots or so and then, with the Trail Blazers seemingly ready to go down the drain, fire a three-pointer . . . and make it.

Edge: Drexler.

Bench--Terry Teagle’s very late resurgence gives the Lakers a credible second unit, assuming he continues to play well.

A.C. Green is more a complimentary starter than someone who will give you big numbers off the bench but he’s a hard-nosed, front-line player.

Larry Drew has had some nice moments but needs more of them.

Elden Campbell was a spectacular surprise against the Warriors. Coach Mike Dunleavy plans to turn him loose on Cliff Robinson and see what happens.

Trail Blazer ace Danny Ainge may be Mr. Unpopularity, but he’s a great sub, averaging 12 points. He plays both guard spots, is a top three-point shooter at 41% and a big-game player.

Robinson is hyper-active and averaged another 12. Some coaches think his worth is less than his numbers.

The Trail Blazers probably picked up Walter Davis as much as anything to keep him away from San Antonio and Chicago. They thought he could play small forward, but he couldn’t and there is little room for him in the guard rotation.

Edge: Trail Blazers. The Lakers need Teagle to keep it a small one.

“We’re like an ’88 Ferrari,” says Mychal Thompson. “That’s when we won our last championship. They’re like a ’91 Ferrari. All you guys say, ‘I like the ’91 better.’ But we’re still a Ferrari.”

Laker Notes

In Games 1 and 2 when Portland has had the home-court advantage in the last two seasons, the Trail Blazers are 10-0. . . . The Lakers issued a release regarding a Maryland woman who says Magic Johnson is the father of her child: “In August of 1990, Earvin Johnson was informed that a lady he had never met, dated or heard of was claiming that he was the father of her child. He took two blood tests, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast. Both positively exclude him from the possibility of being the father of the alleged child. Mr. Johnson will have no further comment.”