As Suns Set, Lakers See All the Way to Portland

The Lakers on Saturday hit a strange, contemplative lull: the calm before the sweep; the pregnant playoff pause before the big, ominous battle ahead.

There was plenty to ponder and much to try to ignore a day after the Lakers ground out another victory over the Phoenix Suns to go up, 3-0, in this Western Conference semifinal series and a day before the Lakers could finalize a sweep.

Behind them: Back-to-back taut finishes with the Suns, who barely fell short in Games 2 and 3, forced the Lakers to execute under pressure, and raised further questions about the Lakers’ ability to blast through the postseason.

Directly in front of them: the desire to complete the sweep today at America West Arena, and earn some rest, one year after the Lakers themselves were swept out of the second round by the San Antonio Spurs.

Around the corner: The Portland Trail Blazers, who could not match the Lakers in the regular season but are performing at a high level in the playoffs, appear to be on their way to a 4-0 stomping of the Utah Jazz and are the most dangerous opponent possible for the Lakers in the Western Conference finals.

The Lakers looked vulnerable in a five-game, first-round opera against the Sacramento Kings, and have been pushed by the finesse, up-and-down Suns.

Should the Lakers care--or be concerned--that Portland is destroying Utah?

“No,” Coach Phil Jackson said, dismissively, “that’s their bargain.”

And he meant “bargain,” literally.

“Actually, we thought all along that we had a harder road to hoe than Portland did, ultimately, with Sacramento and this series,” Jackson said. “And [it was] just probably better for us to go that direction. And Portland has made it quite evident.”

Ron Harper pointed out that Portland’s three blowout victories over Utah don’t carry over to the next round.

“They’re playing good,” Harper said. “We’re playing pretty good. Doesn’t matter yet.

“We’ll get our chance at them, and they’ll get their chance at us.”

Interestingly, the other participants in this series suggested that the difficulties the Lakers have met, and then overcome, probably only heighten their chances of winning the championship.

Even if they are losing public support, and winning playoff games, the Lakers--especially Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, who have taken turns delivering in the crucial moments--have the admiration of the Suns’ players because of the way they’ve handled Phoenix’s biggest charges.

“I think they’ve got to feel that they’re on the brink of winning a championship,” veteran guard Kevin Johnson said.

“You see that they’re growing. They’ve got two great players, and those great players are maturing right before our eyes--hitting big shots and responding to challenges.

“It’s a special group of guys they have there.”

Sun guard Penny Hardaway, while arguing that the Lakers at times look beatable, says that the main difference from previous Laker flops is that they no longer frazzle easily.

“The thing that you respect about them is that they don’t panic,” Hardaway said. “As long as you have Shaquille O’Neal in the middle and Kobe Bryant out on the wing, they’re not going to panic, because one of those two guys can make a shot at any moment--especially Shaquille. . . .

“The triangle [offense] helps them out in that aspect so much, because in the past, they were just running that free-range offense, where Shaq posted and everybody else could do what they wanted to do.

“And all last year and the year before, Kobe was kind of out of control. He was more, ‘I’m taking it to the basket, one on four, I’m going to do my thing.’ And that kind of hurt them.”

How does Portland--deep, mobile, combustible Portland--match with the Lakers?

“I think Portland has more athletes and has a deeper team,” Hardaway said. “But L.A. is probably a smarter team.”

The Lakers, smarter? In the playoffs? In desperation time? From where they were a year ago, to the top IQ team in the league?

“That’s the big change, isn’t it?” said Sun center Luc Longley, who played under Jackson in Chicago. “That’s happened this year.

“I mean, a lot of it has to do with confidence. They’ve just been very confident and sure of themselves as a team.”

So if the Lakers don’t quite look like a once-in-a-generation team, if it looks as if those 67 regular-season victories came against a wounded league, the Laker players don’t really care.

If the bandwagoneers jump over to Portland, that’s OK too.

“We see them,” forward Rick Fox said of the Trail Blazers. “We get the highlights too. I don’t think it’s anything we didn’t suspect them being capable of doing. . . .

“I think they haven’t been challenged quite yet in the playoff-basketball sense. They’ve had quite the easy run so far.

“We, in turn, have had tough games and found ways to win. We’ve played with our nerves rattled and had to adjust and make changes.”