VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE

So this could have been a column about forward Scottie Pippen carrying the Portland Trail Blazers to victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in a crucial, pivotal game in NBA’s Western Conference finals.

A column about Pippen, possessor of those six championship rings earned with the Chicago Bulls, shrugging off what had been a struggling, miserable night before putting the Blazers on his back with a steal, a three-pointer, and then a couple of jumpers over young L.A. star Kobe Bryant, the last of which tied the game at 91.

A column about how Pippen got the best of his former Bulls mentor, calm and way-cool Phil Jackson, and put the Blazers up 2-1 in the series, with a chance to all but ice it, to put the Lakers on “death’s door,” as Jackson put it, on Sunday.

A column about how the Blazers traded for Scottie Pippen to win games just like this one, and how he’s been their leader throughout the playoffs, and was, finally, again on Friday.

A column about the proud champ coming through in crunch time.

Except, with less than a minute left and the score tied, Pippen got the ball on the low block, and with the Blazers’ destiny in his hands, threw a no-look wrap-around pass--straight to Glen Rice of the Lakers.

Whereupon the Lakers went the other way, and another old Bull, Ron Harper, drained the game-winner from the corner.

Or this could have been a column about Mike Dunleavy, the Portland coach.

About how his double-teaming tactics held Shaquille O’Neal scoreless in the first quarter, and about how he’d helped keep the Lakers at bay in the second quarter not simply by putting defensive specialist Stacey Augmon on Bryant but by having Augmon post-up Bryant low, suddenly turning Augmon--Stacey Augmon, for heaven’s sake--into an offensive force.

Except Dunleavy, afterward, was left to dissect the 15 Portland turnovers that led to 25 L.A. points, and the ankle injury to Rasheed Wallace that took the steam out of the Shaq double-team, and the timeout he chose to keep in his pocket when the Blazers forced an L.A. turnover with 14.8 seconds left and got the ball back for the possession that ended with Arvydas Sabonis’ foiled drive.

“It was going through my mind . . . but I thought we had numbers,’ Dunleavy said.

But now the Lakers have the numbers.

They came here needing only a split. They got that. Now, Sunday afternoon’s game here becomes almost a free play for L.A., while it’s the season on the line for the Trail Blazers.

This could have been a column about the Blazers building that first-quarter lead and never looking back, or responding in the fourth quarter with a statement-making win. They didn’t, and they couldn’t, and they’re in trouble.