TALE OF THE TAPE

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47 Minutes 36 25 Points 12 11-18 Field goals 5-13 1-1 3-pt. field goals 1-3 7 Rebounds 9 7 Assists 6 3 Turnovers 3 2 Steals 2

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OTHER VIEWS

CHUCK CULPEPPER

The Oregonian

This telltale series turns out to be an eccentric. It’s a character. It veers around switching leads, puncturing assumptions and making you want to throw up your hands at it. We should have known. From the time of the technical foul for staring and the 25 free-throw attempts by one player in one quarter, we should have known.

So when it headed deep for the caverns into which contentious series often go Friday night in Game 3 with the clock ticking down and the outcome in doubt, it figured the pivotal play would be like some REM dream.

The Lakers would win by blocking a shot.

During the blocked shot, Shaquille O’Neal would be stranded outside the three-point line as perhaps the Rose Garden’s tallest witness.

Stomping into the lane to take the shot would be Arvydas Sabonis, the 7-foot-3 mastodon.

Uninvolved like O’Neal would be Scottie Pippen, who had just taken over the game in previous moments.

Down low went Sabonis, the score 93-91 against.

You got the sense they could feel it on the Richter Scale at Caltech.

He let it go.

Maybe.

Into the picture came Kobe Bryant, eight inches shorter than Sabonis, but no matter, because Bryant blocked the ball, and maybe that made some sense, the way he was super-hero all over the place. Over the goal the clock wiggled down, the building seemed to wonder what was going on, and that was it.

IN QUOTES

“We found a way to get back in the series by reclaiming the homecourt advantage. Now the pressure’s on [Portland] in Sunday’s ballgame to try to maintain because if we put another notch in our belt on Sunday, they’re really at death’s door, and they know it.”

PHIL JACKSON, Laker coach

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“It was a nice, open shot. I told the guys in the huddle that I’d been wide open the whole ball game. I found me a slot and [Bryant] made a nice pass and it was two. Ball game!”

RON HARPER

Laker guard on game-winning shot