Simply Put, Lakers Let One Get Away

Playing here is harder than it looks, so if the Lakers have to come back for the playoffs, the Portland Trail Blazers will have Sunday to remember themselves by.

It should be noted that as the final, inconsequential points were being scored, as the Lakers were done for good, 128-120, after two overtimes at the Rose Garden, Ruben Patterson was standing on the scorer’s table. His fists were over his head, a smile was over his face, and his emotions were over the top, perfect for a town that can’t stand what the Lakers have become, not to mention the bloated Trail Blazers.

Trail Blazer guard Bonzi Wells, who had a team-high 33 points, scored six points in the second overtime and Steve Kerr made a critical three-pointer for the points that eventually beat the Lakers.

Shaquille O’Neal scored 36 points, but missed four of six shots after regulation ended at 105-105, and Kobe Bryant had no points and three turnovers in the two overtime periods. He missed nine of 15 shots and scored 23 points.

The Lakers are 56-24. They can hold their No. 3 playoff seed by winning at Staples Center tonight against Seattle and Wednesday against Sacramento. If they do, they would open defense of their back-to-back titles against Portland in a best-of-five series expected to begin Sunday in Los Angeles.

Mostly, the Lakers said it didn’t matter that they were outplayed at all the crucial times, that they were outdone in the dirty little corners of a game spent on the edge of frantic. There were five technical fouls assessed, two in the second quarter that forced the ejection of Scottie Pippen and caused the hurling of Bill Walton dolls--Sunday’s giveaway--to the floor. There was a flagrant foul. There were dust-ups and glares and all the things you’d expect ... in the playoffs.

“It was a playoff game,” said Patterson, who had seven offensive rebounds and 10 in all. “The win gives us confidence.”

Of course it was important to the Trail Blazers. While they begged otherwise, the Lakers appeared to be as mystified as the Trail Blazers were jubilant. Coach Phil Jackson lowered his head and said, “We gave it away twice, in regulation and the first overtime, so I thought it was appropriate that it finished the way it did. You can’t have that many lives out there on this court.”

It would be his only statement, and it would be twice as much as O’Neal would say. He suffered a hyper-flexed knee in the fourth quarter, stayed on his back for a while, but stayed on the floor. He played 49 minutes and Bryant played 51, both season-highs.

“It’s all right,” O’Neal said as he left.

They went to the first overtime when Rasheed Wallace made a three-pointer with 2.5 seconds remaining, and the second when Derek Fisher made two free throws with eight-tenths of a second remaining.

“We had good looks, but did not knock them down,” said Robert Horry, who missed a straight-on three-point attempt at the regulation buzzer. “This was a jacked-up game, from the officiating to the plays that we ran. It was just a wacky game.”

The thing is, with the Lakers insisting that they’d found a playoff gait, the Trail Blazers did the difficult things to prevail.

They came from 94-84 down in regulation. And they came from 113-105 down in the first overtime.

The Lakers built leads that the Trail Blazers overcame. They built momentum that the Trail Blazers ignored.

Finally, it was the Trail Blazers who pushed first, they who ran off to a lead in the second overtime, and the Lakers wouldn’t come back. Wells made rainbow three-pointers to rally the Trail Blazers back in regulation.

“Bonzi played extremely well,” Bryant said.

And Patterson?

“He’s a garbage player who gets garbage points,” he said.

It was Patterson’s energy, however, that helped drive the Trail Blazers. The Lakers had a 10-point lead with 5:42 left in regulation, and lost it. They had a four-point lead with 27.2 seconds left in regulation, and lost that too. The defense that carried them to three consecutive victories and a sense they were regaining their playoff legs? The Lakers allowed 35 fourth-quarter points, 18 by Wells, most on wide-open attempts.

Still, Bryant insisted, “We’re close. We’re getting there. We played pretty well.”

They have two games. A few practices. A week.

“We maybe underestimated how much of a cushion we needed,” Rick Fox said. “They kept fighting.

“It seems an unlikely scenario to be sitting here talking about a loss.”

Patterson, of course, happily accepted some credit for Bryant’s off game. He had 17 points, 10 rebounds and three steals, and again was very physical against Bryant.

“You all know the situation,” he said. “I know his moves. I kind of wore him down out there. That’s what you try to do against good players.”

Indeed, Bryant appeared to fall off as the game rushed on, sometimes without him. Bryant dismissed it, however.

“Certain parts we didn’t play well and we let it get away,” he said. “Defensively we let them get too many layups. They got too many open looks.

“We feel fine. It’s a game we let slip away, and we know that. We just want to win these next two games.”