Not a Nice Time to Become Nicer

You picked a funny time to grow up, Blazermaniacs.

Unlike the last meeting between these teams, no Portland Trail Blazer incurred a technical foul (as Bonzi Wells and Scottie Pippen had), or a flagrant foul (Shawn Kemp), or was ejected (Pippen) or kicked a chair on the sideline (Rasheed Wallace), causing a teammate sitting on the bench (Steve Kerr) to duck.

Also, unlike the last meeting, the Trail Blazers lost.

Unfortunately for the Trail Blazers, Sunday’s game was more like a walk in the park than that wild and crazy afternoon in Portland a week earlier when they wiped out a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter and an eight-point deficit in overtime, while holding bug-eyed discussions with the referees, pitching fits and ducking the Bill Walton bobblehead dolls their fans were throwing.

Sunday, they were perfect gentlemen, playing at the Lakers’ tempo, waltz time, enabling the Lakers to set up their offense, sort through their options and, when sufficiently threatened, throw the ball in to Shaquille O’Neal.

This is a minuet the Trail Blazers will have to stop--”That would help,” said Derek Anderson--or it’s going to be another long off-season in Oregon.

This wasn’t the breakout game Lakerdom has been living for. If pregame activity and expectation were multiplied, when the game started, there was still none of the old swagger, no electricity in the arena, none of the contagious confidence of last spring, no balance (O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher scored 81 of the Lakers’ 95 points) and no domination. The Trail Blazers, who weren’t putting on a clinic, were still within 68-67 early in the fourth quarter and 87-82 with 4:33 left.

But even if the Lakers look vulnerable, they aren’t just going to take a hike. Someone will have to be good enough to beat them and the Trail Blazers weren’t Sunday.

“You can look at it as a blown opportunity, I think,” said erstwhile center Dale Davis, “‘cause I thought the table was set perfect for us.”

Well, maybe not perfect.

The Lakers are still twice-defending champions, favored to make it three. The Trail Blazers were red hot from January to March, when several NBA people called them the best team in the league, but their momentum ebbed, and their tempers heated up, in a 6-6 finish, sinking their hopes of catching No. 5 Minnesota and ducking the Lakers in the first round, their unannounced but well-known game plan.

Despite beating the Lakers a week ago, this is a nightmare matchup for the Trail Blazers, who were in enough trouble when they had 7-foot, 300-pound Arvydas Sabonis. Now, with Sabonis in Lithuania, ignoring all invitations to come out of retirement, they have to line up the reedy Davis, who fouled out in 24 minutes, on O’Neal.

A year ago, the Trail Blazer coach, Maurice Cheeks, was a 76er assistant on Larry Brown’s staff, watching O’Neal flatten Dikembe Mutombo and puncture the 76ers’ dream.

The difference now is the Trail Blazers have no one as big as Mutombo.

“Shaq was unstoppable then,” said Cheeks before the game, “and he’s probably still unstoppable now....

“What we have to do is try and defend them up the court, not make it so easy for them to grab the ball, swing it around the perimeter and post the ball to him. ‘Cause that way, the guy guarding Shaq has no chance at all.

“Because if [O’Neal] is just getting low-post position, he can just turn around, dunk the ball, do whatever he wants to do.”

Yup, that’s about what happened.

O’Neal didn’t actually get the ball that often, what with Bryant taking 28 shots, perhaps too intent on laying waste to Reuben Patterson, his self-anointed nemesis, to notice he was on his way to missing 18 of them.

However, Bryant scored 34 points, Shaq had 25 and the Trail Blazers shot 36.6%, which isn’t going to win you many games against the champions on their floor.

“He had a good game,” said Patterson of Bryant. “I give him credit....

“He had a good game. I mean, when you get calls, ain’t nothing you can do about that. He shot a lot of free throws. That was half of his points. We got to the basket, get fouled, they don’t call it for us, so ... I don’t know what it is. I mean, everybody watched the game, so ... “

The Trail Blazers, who reckon they made a mistake last spring, staying here for the entire four-day respite between Games 1 and 2 in the NBA’s new e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d first-round format, and not just because their significant others were turned loose on Rodeo Drive, flew home Sunday night.

They’ll return Wednesday, hoping to play better Thursday night, when they’d be well advised to show up with their attitudes, if not their fangs.