Big Finishes Are Becoming a Playoff Trademark

The Lakers’ fourth-quarter earnings are way up. Good thing, because something has to pay to feed the frenzy.

“I think we’re hungry right now,” Eddie Jones said. “The way we’re coming out in the fourth quarter, it’s just flat-out to win games.”

In the series opener Friday, the Lakers shot 62.5% and scored 27 points in the final 12 minutes, compared to 33.3% and 15 for the Trail Blazers. That turned a five-point L.A. lead with 4 minutes 12 seconds remaining into an 18-point rout.

In Game 2, the Lakers shot 60% and scored 29 points in the last quarter, compared to 52.9% and 24 for the Trail Blazers. Portland had begun the quarter down by nine points but quickly fell behind by 14, and never got closer than 10.

“I think they were close games,” Laker Coach Del Harris said. “But in the fourth quarter, we just kind of put it in overdrive.”

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One reason the Lakers didn’t need fifth gear the entire final period Sunday was the change they made at halftime to take Trail Blazer Rasheed Wallace out of the game.

Wallace, the power forward, scored both from the perimeter and inside in the first half, getting 18 points on eight-of-12 shooting to lead Portland to a two-point lead. But then, as Harris said, the Lakers “shifted our J.R. Rider rules to him.”

In short, they were more aggressive on defense, denying Wallace the ball or forcing it out of his hands. He got only one basket, two shots and two points the rest of the way.

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Corie Blount, the Lakers’ starting power forward as recently as three weeks ago but out of the rotation in the playoffs, suffered a sprained right shoulder in practice Tuesday and will be sidelined a minimum of five days. . . . Shaquille O’Neal is the first Laker to score at least 30 points in successive playoff games since Magic Johnson seven years ago. If O’Neal does it again tonight, he’ll be the first with three in a row since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 11 years ago. . . . The Lakers have not swept a playoff series since 1991, when they beat Houston.