Davis, Augmon Suspended for Game 3

Things went from desperate to more desperate for the Trail Blazers, who learned Friday they’ll take the floor for Game 3 without reserves Dale Davis and Stacey Augmon.

Davis, the backup center and a key to the Trail Blazers’ defense against Shaquille O’Neal, was suspended for one game and fined $15,000 for elbowing Robert Horry in the throat in Thursday’s Game 2.

Augmon was suspended and fined $5,000 for leaving the bench. The team was fined another $5,000 for having a player who left the bench.

Davis already had been fined $7,500 for an incident in Game 1.

The Trail Blazers, one of the deepest teams in the league, lost Shawn Kemp, who went into a detox program, and starting guard Bonzi Wells to a knee injury, late in the season. Thursday, they also were without reserve center Antonio Harvey, who suffered back spasms before the game.

The Trail Blazers held a film session here Friday and left before the NBA announced the suspensions, so no one commented directly on it.

But, earlier in the day, Scottie Pippen noted: “When they’ve got a guy playing the way Shaq is playing--it’s surprising to a lot of us the way he’s playing right now and we just don’t have the bodies to throw at him.”

Pippen, on the possibility of the season ending Sunday: “I’m not ready for it to be over. It’s looking like it’s going to be over but I’m not looking forward to it.”

Noncommittal after Game 2, in which his team came apart at the seams, with Davis elbowing Horry, Steve Smith seeming to try to instigate a fight with O’Neal and Rasheed Wallace getting ejected, Trail Blazer Coach Mike Dunleavy called for them to get their minds back on business.

“As a group, we have to stay more poised,” Dunleavy said, “and we have to be tougher and more disciplined in our play.”

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Portland guard Damon Stoudamire on O’Neal and Kobe Bryant: “I look at the whole thing: Maybe they do like each other, maybe they don’t like each other, but at the end of the day, I think that they both want to win.”