Shaw Slips Into a Starring Role

As great moments in Laker history go, it didn’t seem at the time as if Brian Shaw’s desperation, three-point bank shot with four seconds remaining in the third quarter would be remembered beyond, oh, the start of the fourth quarter.

It seemed more like comic relief for the sellout crowd at Staples Center than real relief, a brief interruption in what was looking more and more like an astonishingly easy victory for the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.

The Lakers, who trailed most of the first half, rallied for a 51-50 third-quarter lead, then were all but buried in an 18-2 Trail Blazer avalanche. When Scottie Pippen connected on a three-point shot with 20 seconds remaining in the quarter, the Trail Blazers had their largest lead of the game, 71-55.

Shaw’s weak answer, a three-pointer that rated no higher for style points than the Lakers had in the first three quarters, did not look like a shot that would send momentum from one side to the other and, ultimately, the Lakers to the NBA finals.

Yet, that’s how it will go down in Laker lore.

“We had a 16-point lead and then Brian Shaw went and banked a three-pointer to end the third quarter,” said Trail Blazer Coach Mike Dunleavy, recalling the moment as if he still couldn’t quite believe it. “That was a big momentum play. It got them to where they were in striking range.”

Ron Harper, Shaw’s teammate, was similarly stunned.

“I like Brian Shaw,” he said. “I told him, ‘You’ve been shooting bad all series long. You’ve got to keep on trying to shoot.’ So he shoots one off the glass, which I know he didn’t call.”

Shaw acknowledged that, all but telling reporters afterward that the shot was pure luck.

“They [Portland defenders] jumped out on me,” he said. “I just shot it extra high. It was not intended to go off the backboard . . . Somebody was up there guiding it for me.”’

What happened afterward, however, was more by design.

The Lakers turned up their defensive intensity in the fourth quarter, with Shaw contributing two steals, and outscored the Trail Blazers, 14-4, in the first six minutes and 13 seconds.

Shaw also made two more three-pointers, including the one that tied the score at 75 with 4:00 remaining. He finished with 11 points as the Laker bench, which doesn’t have the Trail Blazers’ depth, outscored Portland’s bench, 25-13.

“It’s not anything different than we’ve been doing all year long,” he said. “It’s been different guys stepping up at different times to get it done.

“For me, it was just my time.”