NBA PLAYOFFS : They’re Back to Business : Lakers: They play this home game in Las Vegas against Trail Blazers.

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

NBA seasons don’t start in Paris or end in Las Vegas. You can generally count on your starting five for more than 58% of its games. But the ‘91-92 Lakers will have to upset the Portland Trail Blazers today--again--to avoid qualifying on all points.

Having already lost Magic Johnson, James Worthy and Sam Perkins, the Lakers now surrender their last remaining scheduled advantage, the right to play Game 4 at home.

Because of the unrest in Los Angeles, they will play at 12:30 at the Thomas & Mack Center on the Nevada Las Vegas campus.

“You can sit here and say, ‘What else could happen?’ ” Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “It’s been from start to finish a tough year.

“Hopefully, that’s the last of the negatives. Maybe something really positive can happen, like we can turn around and win this series and go on to win a championship.”

Is that man wearing rose-tinted contact lenses?

Add to the Laker challenge the fact that their modest momentum, coming out of Wednesday’s seems-like-a-month-ago 121-119 overtime victory, was dissipated immediately, dwarfed by the Rodney King verdict and the ensuing riots.

For the Lakers, these playoffs already weren’t the same.

Now they’re really not the same.

“Normally in a playoff situation, you have nothing on your mind but the particular team you’re playing,” Byron Scott said.

“There’s nothing else you let interfere. Your family understands what’s going on. They sacrifice for you, every game day, every practice, to let you go ahead and do what you have to do to get ready.

“This situation is totally different. You come home, it (rioting) is on the news, it’s everywhere around you, so you can’t help but think about it. It makes basketball almost secondary.

“The joy and excitement of being in the playoffs and competing and this year being the underdogs and playing like we played the last game and hopefully having a chance to take this team (Trail Blazers) to a fifth game--all that joy and excitement and happiness we had after Game 3--I think it’s primarily gone.

“Now it’s just go out and play a game and if we win--great, let’s go to Portland.

“And if we lose, then we have to go back to L.A. and live through this hell.”

Of course, writing the Lakers off is done at anyone’s peril. They have been as tenacious as they have been unlucky and they ran out of things to lose long ago.

For Game 3, Dunleavy decided he might as well concede the boards and started a three-guard lineup with Terry Teagle at forward, lined up against Jerome Kersey.

Teagle outscored Kersey, 26-10. The little Laker lineup ran up a 27-14 rebound margin midway through the second quarter (although the Trail Blazers finally prevailed, 45-40). As if to certify their underdog status, the little Lakers will return today.

The Trail Blazers, conceding they were outhustled in Game 3, promise to show up earlier today.

For the record, the Lakers will wear gold and keep the gate receipts.

At this neutral site, they’re the “home” team.

“The whole thing about the playoffs comes down to pride in your city,” Dunleavy said, awaiting word of the site for Game 4.

“And this was a time of year in Los Angeles when people were really up for the Lakers. . . . I think, coming into our game the other night, people were feeling good about our team and its accomplishments. And they were feeling even better, based on the fact that we won a game and here we are now, with a chance to tie the series. But I think all that’s negated by what’s going on. It basically turned this into something that’s almost meaningless.”

Today the Lakers try to recapture the meaning. It’s what they do best.

Laker Notes

Terry Teagle, who averaged 18 points and shot 52% after Sam Perkins was sidelined, is leading the Lakers in the series, averaging 21 points in 31 minutes per game, shooting 57%. . . . The Trail Blazers’ Clyde Drexler is averaging 26 points, eight rebounds and nine assists.