Trail Blazers First Get Rid of Tension : NBA playoffs: Before slamming Lakers, they loosen up by putting on dunking exhibition.

At one end of Thomas & Mack Center Sunday, the Lakers were going about the serious business of survival.

In a few minutes, they would be starting Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series against the Portland Trail Blazers knowing full well they needed a victory to keep their improbable season alive.

And the Lakers acted like it, checking out every crack and every angle on the unfamiliar floor, looking for any edge they could get.

Not the Trail Blazers.

They were acting more like it was an All-Star game than a playoff game, appearing to be tuning up for a slam-dunk contest rather than a crucial game.

Cheered on by the enthusiastic crowd of 15,478, the Trail Blazers took turns spinning and stuffing, everybody from Clyde Drexler and Jerome Kersey to 6-3 Ennis Whatley and 6-2 Robert Pack.

Arrogance? Overconfidence?

Not at all, Trail Blazer forward Buck Williams said after his club maintained that loose attitude throughout a 102-76 romp.

“It just felt good to be back in a competitive atmosphere, to be back on the hardwood,” Williams said, his mood changing as he thought about the horrible sights and sounds he and his teammates had watched on their television sets in their L.A. hotel as a riot raged around them for three days. To Williams, the levity and dunking was a tangible method of expelling the tension of those dark, scary days.

“It seemed like we were in a new world here,” he said of Las Vegas. “It was like we got caught in a war zone (in Los Angeles). It seemed like we were there three weeks. It reminded me of when I was in the Philippines a couple of years ago for an All-Star game and they had a coup while I was there.

“What it showed me was that we need a new system. This system has failed us. We have our work cut out for us.”

In another corner of the victorious Portland locker room, Coach Rick Adelman also talked about the long days leading up to Sunday’s game.

“Sitting around for so long,” he said. “It was a tough period for us in L.A. This gets our minds back to what we do.”

The Trail Blazers practiced Saturday in Las Vegas, but didn’t take the court Sunday until the pregame drill.

“I was really worried,” Adelman said. “It was not clear how we would come out.”

He had an idea after seeing the dunkathon.

“We don’t usually get into that,” Adelman said, “but we had a lot of energy after three days off. Watching that, I knew we were ready to go.”

Once the game got under way, Portland threw a defensive net over the Lakers that stifled them at every turn.

“Our defense was the key,” said Portland guard Danny Ainge, who contributed a good deal of offense as well with 19 points, including three three-pointers. “We maintained it pretty well though I never expected to win like that. We were able to get the open shots off the transition. . . . They were doubling Clyde and that left me open for the three. If they stayed out with me, we would go to Clyde. It was a tough decision for them. We matched up well.”

It was the matchup Adelman wanted, his three guards--Ainge, Drexler and Terry Porter--against three Laker guards, Byron Scott, Sedale Threatt and Terry Teagle.

“I thought they would have trouble guarding us,” Adelman said, “so I made the decision to go with that lineup after the third game.”

Adelman has also made another decision: to use Ainge more than he has in the past.

“You’re going to see Danny play quite a bit,” Adelman said. “When I put him and Terry in, that forces them to use a guard or small forward on Clyde. It also gives Clyde two shooters he can find (to pass to).”

While there was some measure of satisfaction in the minds of the Trail Blazers after beating the Lakers, it was tempered because of the Lakers they beat.

Portland has been tormented by the Lakers in the postseason for 15 years, losing four series since sweeping Los Angeles in 1977.

“They have beat us many, many times,” Drexler said. “It was nice to beat them once. But if they had had Magic (Johnson), (James) Worthy and (Sam) Perkins, it would have been sweeter. It’s almost not the same. But a victory is a victory.”

And a decimated team is a decimated team.

“I have a lot of respect for them,” Adelman said of the Lakers. “I don’t know another team that has gone through what they have gone through. They’ve lost their stars and had to put guys in new roles. Mike Dunleavy has done a great job. He deserves a lot of credit.

“It would have been easy to quit. There were people who thought that would have been the best thing for them. But they never did.”