Buck Wouldn’t Let the Series Stop Here : Trail Blazers: Williams pulls down 16 rebounds as Portland forces Game 6 at the Forum.

After the Lakers embarrassed the Portland Trail Blazers by 21 points Sunday at the Forum to take a 3-1 lead in the NBA Western Conference finals, Trail Blazer forward Buck Williams guaranteed that his team would return to the Forum for Game 6.

Williams was so confident of a Trail Blazer victory in Game 5 that he packed his suitcase before the game for the return trip to Los Angeles today.

Williams backed up his guarantee by grabbing 16 rebounds and scoring 13 points as the Trail Blazers stayed alive with a 95-84 victory Tuesday night before a sellout crowd of 12,884 at the Memorial Coliseum.

“He was unbelievable,” Trail Blazer Coach Rick Adelman said of Williams. “It seemed like every time we needed a rebound, he’d just go up and get it. He was a monster.

“That’s typical Buck Williams. He was so determined tonight that he told me he didn’t need any rest tonight.”

Williams got only two minutes’ rest, playing a game-high 46 minutes. He made five of 13 shots and three of four free throws and had three steals and an assist.

“We knew that everybody had to step their games up a notch tonight or else we’d be home watching the Lakers and Chicago in the finals,” Williams said.

Williams motivated the Trail Blazers Tuesday with his aggressive play.

“Buck Williams is an inspiration for us,” said forward Jerome Kersey, who had a team-high 20 points. “You know he’s always going to be around the ball. I just hope he saved some energy for Thursday in Los Angeles.”

With Portland center Kevin Duckworth (three for 11 from the field) failing to break out of his slump, Williams helped to ignite the Trail Blazers by picking up the slack for Duckworth, who had nine points and eight rebounds in 29 minutes.

Williams had six offensive rebounds as the Trail Blazers grabbed a team-record 26 and outrebounded the Lakers, 52-33.

“Offensive rebounding, more than anything else, can just devastate a team,” Williams said. “You get the opposing team to shoot the kind of shot you want them to shoot, and all of a sudden there’s a breakdown and they get an offensive rebound.

“One of the factors our team is predicated on is our ability to get to the offensive glass. If we don’t shoot well, it places a high premium on second and third shots. We didn’t get many offensive rebounds in games three and four and that’s why we got blown out. But tonight we didn’t shoot well (40.4%), but we still got the second and third shots.”

Williams got what may have been his most important offensive rebound with 2:03 remaining when he rebounded his own missed layup. It was Williams’ 15th rebound of the game and it allowed the Trail Blazers, leading 89-81, to run more time off the clock before Clyde Drexler sank a 16-foot jumper with 1:45 left.

One of the NBA’s most aggressive rebounders, Williams has the scars to show for his battles on the boards. There’s a large scar under his left eye and another on his right arm. Williams said he can tell a good rebounder by how many scratches he has.

“If you look at Charles Barkley and Karl Malone, they have scratches on their bodies,” Williams said. “The guys that don’t (rebound) don’t have many scars on them. If I look at a player like Reggie Theus, I wouldn’t draft him because he looks too good to be a rebounder.”

Williams spent the first eight years of his career in New Jersey, where he was a good player on a bad team, before he was traded to the Trail Blazers after the 1989 season for Sam Bowie and a first-round draft pick.

“All the years in Jersey made me a better person and a better basketball player,” Williams said. “I learned how to deal with adversity, and that’s what we have in front of us right now, down 3-2.”

Said Drexler: “When we got Buck, it really solidified our team. We needed a guy who could clog the middle and play the kind of defense he does. When we got Buck, he was the missing piece to the puzzle.”