Travail Blazers

As the Lakers learned Sunday, it could be risky to face the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

The Lakers could either fall victim to a Portland team that finally realizes its potential, or they could suffer collateral damage from being too close if the unstable Trail Blazers self-destruct.

A Laker-Trail Blazer matchup still seems likely, be it as the No. 3 and No. 6 seeds or the No. 2 and No. 7 seeds. It would pit two preseason favorites for the championship, two teams that have failed to live up to expectations, but it would at least provide the Lakers with a little solace. As difficult as this season has been, at least it has not been as dramatic a disappointment as Portland’s.

So while the Trail Blazers showed their potency by shooting 57% in the fourth quarter, they also showed their volatility. Rasheed Wallace threw a towel in the face of teammate Arvydas Sabonis during a timeout, after Sabonis was knocked into him by Shaquille O’Neal, chipping one of Wallace’s teeth.

Jack Nicholson beware: A water bottle and a mouthpiece have also been thrown by Trail Blazers in moments of frustration.

“We have the trophy as the most dysfunctional team this season,” Laker forward Rick Fox said. “We’ll give it to them.”

What’s up with the Trail Blazers?

The question draws a shake of the head and a roll of the eyes-- and that’s just from the Portland players.

Where to begin?

With the fact that the team’s best scoring option is about as likely to get kicked out as he is to score at the end of the game? Perhaps it’s because players on the team and around the league think the offense is too predictable? Or is it that the Trail Blazers are not young enough to keep up with the athletic teams, but not old enough to put winning above everything else? Can Portland recover from a season-ending injury to its most versatile player? And how will it end?

This is a team with the talent to win a title. Yet it could just as easily leave in the first round of the playoffs, an event that could preclude the end of Mike Dunleavy’s tenure as coach, the end of this collection of players and the end of the concept of a multistar roster in the NBA.

What’s keeping it all so murky is an underlying issue with confidence. Confidence in the coach, confidence that they can make it all work. They believe in their abilities at the core, but doubt lurks around the edges. There’s too much stuff going on for the Trail Blazers to simply come out and play basketball.

“The most important thing is, ultimately, that you make good with what you have,” Scottie Pippen said. “We haven’t done that this year. Teams have challenged us in many ways, each and every night out on the court, and we haven’t met the challenge. That’s what you talk about when you talk about winning a championship, is meeting the challenges every night.”

Money wasn’t a challenge to this team. Not with the resources of multibillionaire owner Paul Allen, a Microsoft co-founder. General Manager Bob Whitsitt kept adding player after player. The payroll for this team approaches $90 million. The salary cap didn’t restrain the Trail Blazers, the looming luxury tax wasn’t a deterrent. But there was nothing they could do about the most inflexible numbers in the NBA: 48 minutes in a game, available to only five players at a time.

At the beginning of the season Portland had 10 players on the roster who had been starters in their careers. It might have been asking too much of Dunleavy to find a way for all of them to play to their satisfaction.

“It’s probably the toughest thing in the NBA for a coach to do,” said Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry, whose team is so laden with young talent that he has kept Darius Miles, Corey Maggette and Quentin Richardson on the bench during the course of the season.

“I do think it’s really tough for Mike, because he’s dealing with a lot of veteran guys. In our case, we’re dealing with young guys and it’s still tough.”

Dunleavy wasn’t too big on science when he was in school, “But you have to take all the basics,” he said, and portions of that chemistry textbook stick in his head.

“Chemistry means, basically, how a group of substances mix together,” Dunleavy said. “Sometimes you put different compounds together . . . they can explode. Sometimes they mix well. Sometimes they repel each other.

“Same with teams.”

This was a perhaps the most novel experiment in league history.

“If you look at every team that has been successful winning championships, there have always been a bunch of role players,” Gentry said. “It’s hard to get guys who have been The Man to become role players.”

It’s not as if the Trail Blazers hate each other. Just because there isn’t chemistry doesn’t mean there isn’t camaraderie.

They hang out together. They laugh with and at each other.

Before a recent game in Vancouver, Wallace was clowning with teammates in the locker room--even calling Pippen from the back room so he could show him videotape of Pippen catching an elbow from Shareef Abdur-Rahim and flailing backward. After the game players and Dunleavy gathered around a television set and watched “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” testing and teasing each other about their knowledge--or lack of it.

“I think we’re a tighter unit off the floor than on,” guard Damon Stoudamire said. “We get along probably better than any team off the floor; on the floor sometimes it doesn’t seem that way.”

Elements have been added and subtracted during the season. The mixture still doesn’t seem right.

“It think it’s been one of those experiments that’s been all over the board at times,” Dunleavy said. “At times it’s been terrific. At other times it’s been pretty volatile. I don’t think we’re in either one of those positions right now. We’re somewhere in between it. We’re trying to get to the former.”

The last time the Trail Blazers paid the Lakers a holiday visit, on Christmas, they left with a victory and went on to a 10-game winning streak. They still had the best record in the Western Conference as recently as March 6. Then they lost to Vancouver at home, the first of five consecutive losses and 11 defeats in 17 games. Their only victories in April are against Golden State (twice) and Vancouver.

Even when things were good, there were warning signs. Dale Davis was miffed about playing only five minutes against the Lakers, and he skipped a practice to head to Las Vegas. Dunleavy moved Bonzi Wells into Steve Smith’s spot in the starting lineup. Although Smith is one of the most professional guys in the league, it hurt his pride to relinquish his starting spot.

Sabonis hurt his left knee, and the team never seems quite the same without its biggest player. Pippen missed 17 games because of an elbow injury. Whitsitt brought in Detlef Schrempf as insurance while Pippen was hurt. He also let Schrempf visit his family in Seattle when he wanted, a perk that wasn’t lost on other players.

Stoudamire had finally felt comfortable this season after unhappily sharing point guard duties with Greg Anthony for three years. Then Whitsitt signed Rod Strickland on March 5, four days after the Washington Wizards brought an end to his tumultuous year in D.C. The team was wary, Stoudamire was temporarily spooked and the team wondered if the move was really necessary.

Although the team has a losing record since his arrival, Strickland is about the only player who hasn’t publicly grumbled about Portland’s situation.

“I’ve shut my mouth,” Strickland said. “I want to be a mouse. That’s why I came here; I want to be a mouse. I’m tired of the spotlight, the negative publicity.”

Meanwhile, the continuous battle of Wallace vs. the referees reached its peak when he was tossed in the fourth quarter of a loss to Minnesota on April 1. Wallace is posting career-high numbers in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots. Unfortunately, he is also racking up technical fouls in record numbers as well. Against the Timberwolves, Wallace received his 39th and 40th technical fouls and seventh ejection of the season.

After saying over and over that this was simply a part of Wallace’s game, that you have to take the good and the bad, the Trail Blazers finally came down on him. They suspended him for the next game, against Denver.

They’re hoping this will get his attention. Wallace is a nightmare for opposing teams; he can change the dynamics of a game when he gets rolling. But when he gets tossed the Trail Blazers are in a quandary. Dunleavy still thinks about what might have happened if Wallace had not been ejected in the first half of Game 1 of last year’s conference finals against the Lakers.

Dunleavy also noticed that Wallace was a little out of sorts his first two games back.

It hurt “a little bit,” Wallace said. “But honestly, I’m not even sweating it. I’m still going to go out and hoop. Hey, I’ve been fighting stuff all year.

“I’m still fiery. It’s just a matter of playing. That was when [stuff] was going bad for us. So I’ll be the scapegoat or whatever. I’m not worried about it.”

The first week in April was the team’s lowest point. Strickland was suspended by the league for the Denver game for a drunk driving conviction that stemmed from an arrest on Jan. 7 when he was in Washington. Then Shawn Kemp left the team to enter a drug rehabilitation clinic. (He will not return this season.) On April 6, Wells landed awkwardly and tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He’s gone for the season too.

Wells created all kinds of matchup problems for opposing guards or forwards.

“He got us into the open court for very easy scores,” Dunleavy said. “That was the big thing for him. He’s coming up with the baskets that you’re not having to run a whole lot of plays for, even though you target him. The running the floor, the open court, finishing, the cutting. The lobs the offensive rebounds. Those were all areas that he was probably our best player at.”

With the playoffs looming, these are the Trail Blazers. There isn’t much more time to get things right.

“It’s on the way there,” Wallace said. “I’m not sure it’s quite there yet. We’re still making some dumb turnovers and stuff. Once we get fine-tuned into that playoff mode, we’ll get it down.”

How much tuning can there be? At this point aren’t they all tweaked out?

“If there ain’t no chemistry, there ain’t no chemistry,” Stoudamire said. “It ain’t going to happen in a week.”

“It can work,” Strickland said. “Obviously, we’re struggling now. But it can work.

“There are so many guys who can do so many things. When you’re playing together and you’ve got all those options, who you gonna stop?”

Sometimes the Trail Blazers simply stop themselves.

“When it’s wrong, things get kind of stagnant,” Strickland said. “One on one.”

To their credit, the Trail Blazers don’t do a lot of moaning about their lost players; usually addressing the subject only when asked about it.

In their favor, they have at least one victory against every team in the league, including road wins against the Lakers, San Antonio, Philadelphia and Utah.

“I still think no one wants to face us in the playoffs,” Smith said.

That could be true. But how many teams will get the chance?

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

In Decline

The Trail Blazers have been getting worse as the season progresses:

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Month Record Pts Opp Pts Oct./Nov. 11-6 94.2 90.6 Dec. 10-4 98.6 92.9 Jan. 12-4 92.5 88.0 Feb. 7-4 98.0 90.8 March 7-7 93.0 92.1 April 3-6 99.6 94.9

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