Road Test

True greatness comes with room service.

In other words, the road is where true champions prove themselves, where the best players embed themselves in our minds.

The Lakers have reached the point where the continuation of their season, the affirmation of Shaquille O’Neal and the evolution of Kobe Bryant requires them to be exceptional away from home, where life consists of hotels and buses and 20,000 fans yelling “Beat L.A.”

A good time for them to start would be tonight, in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals against the Portland Trail Blazers, when the Rose Garden crowd and the Portland players will be fueled by their dismantling of the Lakers in their series-tying victory in Game 2.

“Guys with character usually show it when adversity is at hand, when there are obstacles that are great,” said Laker backup center John Salley, who played with recent Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Isiah Thomas in Detroit and future hall of famer Michael Jordan in Chicago.

“A lot of times when you get in that situation, you realize you have to go within yourself because you have no fans helping you out, you don’t sleep in your own bed, you don’t eat your own food.

“You learn to take the yells and the screams and make them cheers. It’s almost like loving the darkness.”

Great teams thrive on that. They recognize, as Laker Coach Phil Jackson said, that “Winning on the road is one of the pleasures of NBA basketball--particularly the playoff games.”

Salley’s “Bad Boy” Pistons went 10-5 in road playoff games and clinched both of their championships in visiting territory during their run in 1989 and 1990.

“Our attitude: Take your house . . . pillage the village, burn it. Next city,” Salley said.

There’s something about that hostile environment that brought out the best in the NBA’s best players.

Magic Johnson’s 42-point performance as a rookie fill-in for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Game 6 of the 1980 finals came in Philadelphia’s Spectrum. He swished his junior sky hook in Boston Garden.

A 38-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played his way to the 1985 finals most-valuable-player award with two strong games in Boston.

Reggie Miller’s Spike Lee-heckling, 25-point fourth quarter against the Knicks in 1994 and his eight-point flurry at the end of Game 1 the next year are all the more memorable because they took place in Madison Square Garden.

Michael Jordan’s 63-point game against the Celtics was in the Bulls’ visiting red jersey. His two shots to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, the 38-point “Sick Game” . . . red jersey, red jersey, red jersey.

And appropriately, the final image of him on the court is in a red jersey, extending his hands on the follow-through to the shot that won the 1998 championship and brought an end to his career.

The Lakers need O’Neal and Bryant to produce the type of performances that will be replayed for years to come. It isn’t merely for marketing’s sake.

Jackson always talks about how bench players are less reliable away from home. One reason is that stars can get the benefits of the referees’ whistles on the road as well as home. But they need to force the issue, not merely wait for the refs to bail them out.

Portland’s defense has dropped the Laker offense into the hands of the Laker support players. O’Neal and Bryant must take it back.

The offense has called for O’Neal to be patient when he gets the ball, to survey the floor and look for his teammates before he goes to work.

Against Portland, the longer he holds the ball the more Trail Blazer defenders he’ll attract. So he’ll have to get it and go straight to attack mode, fighting through as many defenders as necessary to score.

Bryant must find that narrow space between taking over and becoming too self-involved, to recapture some of that assertive tendency he showed in the two games at Sacramento in the first round.

The Lakers did have their moments in the purple jerseys this year, and did finish with the best road record in the league, 31-10.

O’Neal made his play of the year in Orlando, when he stole an inbounds pass and dribbled downcourt for a dunk to send the game into overtime.

The peak of the Laker season was when they went into the Rose Garden on Feb. 29 and beat the Trail Blazers, a victory that vaulted them toward the best record in the league.

Robert Horry said that doesn’t apply now that the playoffs are here. And it took only one quarter Monday night to wipe out all the Lakers gained from that Feb. 29 game and their work in the seven weeks that followed: home-court advantage in the postseason.

That belongs to the Trail Blazers now, while the Lakers have themselves a challenge.

In four road playoff games to date they have managed to eke out one shaky victory.

They have not demonstrated those qualities that Jackson said determine a great road team.

“A team gets a little run on them, they’re able to match it,” Jackson said. “They’re not flustered. They stay with their game plan. They play solid defense, don’t turn the ball over a lot and someone steps up and makes some big plays. You have to make a couple of big plays in a game that’s on the road.”

It has to be the big players that do it.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com