Sky Falls, and Trail Blazers Crumble

Voices from beneath the rubble:

“We’ve done that to teams,” Greg Anthony said. “But to have it happen to you, it’s a little humbling.”

Brian Grant said, “Somebody’s going to have to be upset after the game, and it looks like it’s us.”

From Scottie Pippen: “I realize that we sort of made cowards of ourselves in the fourth quarter.” The Portland Trail Blazers, proof that Chicken Little was right after all, handled the implosion with the proper measure of composure and realization, congratulating the Lakers on the victory, blaming themselves for the defeat and, in general, appearing to understand the magnitude of what had just occurred. Having the roof fall on them had not taken away the ability to grasp.

Taking away the pain will be the tricky part. That probably won’t happen until fall, at the soonest, when a new season begins. Maybe not even until spring, when the playoffs come anew. Maybe, more pointedly, until they have the chance to confront the same situation and stare down the demon, to gain redemption and a spot in the NBA finals at the same time.

They would take the same situation again, of course. Ahead by 16 points late in the third quarter of a Game 7 on the road. Shooting 60% in the quarter to turn a close contest into a rout. Up by 15 points with 10:28 remaining in the fourth. Ideal position.

Just not as good as being ahead by, oh, 21 points.

The Lakers made up those 15 and then went five better, winning, 89-84, and leaving observers to call the Trail Blazers far worse things than jackals. Forget sometime next season, at the beginning or a more-favorable end. It will take them closer to forever to live this one down.

The chance--the grandest of chances--for the first trip to the NBA finals since 1992 was wasted. In the fourth quarter, 18 of 23 shots were missed, 13 points were scored, and 31 points allowed, all with the championship series on the line. For the Trail Blazers, a not-so-ordinary off-season began Sunday sometime around 7:30 p.m. They showered and dressed in the visitors’ locker room at Staples Center, packed up their belongings and started on the long trip back. And we don’t mean the flight to Portland.

“We had our opportunities,” said Anthony, the backup point guard. “That’s what makes it more disappointing and will make for a long summer.

“Words can’t really describe the feeling. This is something that’s going to take time to heal.”

This was something, whatever it was that had just happened.

“Definitely, it was surreal,” Anthony said. “Without question. It was disappointing. You put your heart and soul into this moment. This penultimate moment. We gave our all. Unfortunately, our all was not good enough.”

Not in the fourth quarter, when it mattered most, and when it all unraveled. That’s what made it so epic. Not just losing a tough Game 7, after winning the previous two times just to get in this against-all-odds position, and not merely missing a chance to become the seventh team in NBA history to advance after trailing 3-1 in a best-of-seven series. But losing everything at once: a huge fourth-quarter lead, the game, the series.

“I could definitely see the tension,” Laker guard Derek Fisher said. “The first three quarters, I saw arrogance and confidence. I was concerned that they were playing with it and we were not.

“You don’t play with as much confidence when you’re not putting the ball in the basket. We found that out in this series. They found it out specifically in the fourth quarter today.”

It was a fourth quarter in which the Trail Blazers died, and one that will live on in Laker lore.

“They ended up getting the W,” Trail Blazer forward Rasheed Wallace said. “Hey, we’ve got to live another day, you know. We’ve got next year. We know we played as hard as we could play, so we can walk around with our heads up.”

Leaving just one thing.

“For us,” Grant said, “we’ve just got to go home and think about it all summer.”