Pippen Pivotal--in Wrong Way

The strangest sight in the Portland locker room was Scottie Pippen and Steve Kerr, two guys who ended every season hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy in June not too long ago, getting dressed next to each other with their season done in April.

The two former Chicago Bulls were swept out of the first round of the playoffs Sunday when the Lakers wiped out a five-point deficit in the last 39 seconds to snatch Game 3 from the Portland Trail Blazers, 92-91.

“I can’t remember a tougher loss,” Kerr said.

Pippen seemed strangely at peace with this defeat.

“I’m never happy to lose,” Pippen said. “But losing and understanding why you lost makes a difference.”

Pippen would understand all right. He had much better knowledge than any other Trail Blazer, because he was intimately involved with everything that went wrong in the final 10.8 seconds.

First, he missed a free throw that could have given the Trail Blazers a three-point lead.

Then he made the wrong choice on defense and left to help on Kobe Bryant, allowing Robert Horry an open look for the winning three-point shot. Then he threw a bad inbounds pass for a turnover on Portland’s last chance for a shot.

It’s as if Pippen’s career has taken a reversal from the normal path of progression. Usually players bang against a wall before finally breaking through to glory. Pippen enjoyed all the success earlier.

Call him Michael Jordan’s sidekick if you will, but his defense on Magic Johnson and his speed in the transition game were big reasons the Bulls beat the Lakers in 1991 to win their first championship.

These days, Pippen and his six rings keep getting kicked to the curb by the Lakers.

This is the fourth consecutive season Pippen has lost to the Lakers in the playoffs; once with the Houston Rockets and the last three years in Portland.

“Somehow we have to figure out a way to get past this team,” Pippen said. “Or get around them.”

With Houston in 1999, the Rockets coughed up a one-point lead in the final 28 seconds when Pippen lost control of the ball and Derek Fisher went to the floor to grab it and help the Lakers take Game 1.

Pippen was a member of the cast of culprits in the Trail Blazers’ fourth-quarter collapse in Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals.

And he missed 14 of his 17 three-pointers and had a team-high 12 turnovers in the Lakers’ three-game sweep of the Trail Blazers last year.

The most unusual thing about Sunday was that Pippen’s miscues came on defense and passing, two elements of his game that separated him from the rest of the large flock of 6-foot-7 players in the NBA.

He might not lock up guys individually anymore, but his team defense and court knowledge remain unsurpassed in the league. His roaming defense and long arms played a large role in Portland’s ability to contain Shaquille O’Neal throughout the first half of Game 1 and most of Game 3.

He did what came naturally when he saw Bryant driving past Ruben Patterson in the waning seconds. He left Horry and stepped in to draw the charge. But Bryant’s body control helped him avoid contact as he passed out to Horry.

“I thought [Bryant] had got the step on Ruben,” Pippen said. “I was hoping that he had committed himself in the air, and I was going to cut him off from the basket.”

Instead it was Pippen who committed. He treated Bryant as a bigger threat than Horry. It all happened so fast that other Portland players and Coach Maurice Cheeks couldn’t even identify the player involved.

“Kobe had the ball and he penetrated the lane and instincts took over,” Cheeks said.

“I’m not sure who was in the corner, but his instincts took over. He stepped in and Horry got a wide-open shot.”

But Pippen knew.

“I didn’t get out to [Horry], basically,” Pippen said. “And it cost us the ballgame.”

They had one last chance, with the ball and 2.1 seconds remaining.

The Trail Blazers tried to run a play to post up Rasheed Wallace and set a screen for Kerr. It took a while to unfold, and with the five-second count drawing closer Pippen sent his inbounds pass for Wallace too high. Horry came down with it.

The team with the most expensive roster in the league, the only squad with a self-proclaimed “Kobe Stopper,” couldn’t get a game off the Lakers for the second consecutive playoff series, settling for satisfaction at coming close at least once.

“We gave them a run,” Pippen said. “That’s what we wanted to do.”

“It would have been great if we could have won the game, but I’m very proud of the way that we came out and competed. Everybody in the world knows that we were undermanned with Shaq and his dominance, but we came out today and put it on the line and gave ourselves an opportunity to win the game.”

An opportunity that Pippen squandered.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.