Given Up for Dead, There’s Still Heartbeat

Their backs were to the wall.

They had to play as if there was no tomorrow.

Do or die.

They had to want it more than the Lakers.

All the cliches, in the face of elimination. All in effect, against the body of work from the previous four days. All except one.

That the Portland Trail Blazers were already ghosts, bound for the History Channel instead of another prime-time NBC gig, big enough tanks after blowing big leads and getting swept at home to host Shamu’s family reunion.

That they couldn’t possibly have this in them.

And then:

Trail Blazers 96, Lakers 88.

“We think we have a lot of pride,” forward Detlef Schrempf said. “We have a lot of veterans on this team. “We didn’t want to go out like we did at home.”

Ah, yes. The Rose Garden games. Wasting a 12-point as late as the third quarter Friday night, having the final three possessions end with two turnovers and a blocked shot, and losing by two. Needing all of 3:39 of a Sunday afternoon to waste an 11-point lead in the first half, trailing by as many as 19 points in the fourth quarter and losing by 12, making it 3-1 in the series and 0-4 at home in the Western Conference finals the last two years.

So of course they had no chance Tuesday. The off-season called. The fans called the talk radio shows.

“It’s not hard to give up on a team that lost both games at home and would have to come down to L.A.,” forward Brian Grant said.

Said guard Bonzi Wells: “Definitely there was pressure. You don’t want to get eliminated when it’s the two best teams in the league playing. You don’t want to get swept 4-1.”

OK, so it wouldn’t have been a sweep, but you get the idea. It would have been bad.

Against that backdrop, Portland built another first-quarter lead, this time seven points, only to have that cut to two by the end of the quarter. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. Rasheed Wallace, ejected in Game 1 but near a model citizen since, yapped at referee Ronnie Nunn after a non-call with the game only two minutes old, then got a technical from Joey Crawford about four minutes later after being called for an offensive foul.

These were the Trail Blazers, all right. It’s really not hard to give up on this team.

Then Scottie Pippen dislocated two fingers on his left--non-shooting, at least--hand and spent the first 4:42 of the second quarter on the bench, sometimes in obvious pain while being attended to by the medical staff. The screener at the station already had a migraine from all the shouting.

From this came a resurgence. The Trail Blazers increased the lead from two to nine by the time Pippen returned. When the Lakers got within three later in the quarter, Portland pushed the margin to eight for halftime. It became 13 at the end of the third quarter. It didn’t go lower than seven in the fourth, and that was with 43 seconds remaining.

There would be no collapse this time.

There would be a Game 6.

“I’m really proud of everybody, how we stepped up and responded,” Grant said. “Even when it started getting rough out there today, we continued to go with it. We didn’t blow up, lose our cool or do anything to hurt the team. No we can go home and won’t look past that.”

“We didn’t give up on ourselves, and that’s the important thing.”

So many cliches.

So many truths.