A New Kind of Showtime

Well, that was your basic drubbing, wasn’t it? In Game 3 between the men of the Port and the men of the Lake, it was a water-tight defense that made the difference for the winners, so don’t go listening to any talk about “Showtime” having returned to Los Angeles. This one belonged to the Laker defense, not the offense.

This was NO-time.

This one was Sam Perkins taking charges and Byron Scott swatting shots and A.C. Green gobbling the ‘bounds.

NO-time.

This one was Vlade Divac practically judo-chopping Terry Porter to keep him from scoring and Perkins nearly decapitating a break-awaying Danny Ainge.

NO-time.

This one was Lakers: seven blocked shots. Trail Blazers: zip.

Like we said, NO-time.

This one made Michael Cooper smile a nostalgic guess-you-don’t-need-me-anymore smile from his Forum seat.

It was Buck Williams scoring one basket in 32 minutes. Kevin Duckworth taking 14 shots and making two. Clyde Drexler throwing a baker’s dozen bricks.

NO-time.

It was a four-minute-old game with the Blazers stuck on zero.

NO-time.

This one was Portland being so far gone that Wayne Cooper played, and Danny Young, and Alaa Abdelnaby.

This one was Portland using its patented illegal defense, which Coach Rick Adelman apparently intends using until the team gets it right.

And this one featured a Laker team that rebounds hard, and not those weaklings who got sand kicked in their face in in Game 2.

The Lakers were good Friday night. Very good. Very, very good. 1980s good. As good as they’ve been since that 16-game winning streak in January. As good as they’ve been since Earvin Johnson and James Worthy wore beards.

They were good from start to finish. Good to the last block. Good from the time they scored the game’s first 10 points to the time shortly after the game when 7-foot-7 Manute Bol visited the locker room and Laker rookie Elden Campbell looked up and said: “Hey, big dad!”

Much of the talk afterward was about the shaking and baking and breaking the Lakers suddenly were doing, similar to the olden days.

Even A.C. Green had to admit: “Yes, you probably saw a little bit of the old Showtime in this one. It’s been a long time since I saw it myself.”

You can thank--or blame, if you’re for the Blazers--the usual suspect, Earvin Johnson, for that. Magic was up to his old tricks, tight-roping the baseline to keep a ball from going out of bounds, then suddenly whipping it one-handed the length of the court for a fast-break Divac dunk.

The guy has eyes in his elbows.

But mainly, the Lakers got mean.

“We weren’t prepared to draw flagrant fouls, exactly, but we definitely knew it was time to start being a lot more, well, aggressive,” Green said.

Whatever they were doing out there, it worked. Portland never shot more poorly.

“I don’t know that they were doing anything any different,” Drexler said. “I think it was us.”

It was us what?

“It was us not making any shots,” Drexler said.

Portland’s big center, Kevin Duckworth, who missed enough for everybody, said: “The key was that the Lakers were very active inside. They did a good job of collapsing down in the paint.”

Right you are, big dad.

“We missed easy shots and they did a great job on defense,” added Ainge.

Right you are, smaller dad.

The Lakers scored the first 10 points and never looked back.

It was over in no time.