Road Gets No Easier for Lakers

PORTLAND, Ore. -- They’d call it one lousy quarter, the second, when they were outscored by 22 points and Kobe Bryant and Devean George sprained their ankles.

It was, and now it’s two lousy nights, two lousy games, too little Bryant, and no Shaquille O’Neal at all.

Bryant and George limped away from a 102-90 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night at the Rose Garden, and so the Lakers are 0-2 for the first time in 12 years, they’ve played well for about a quarter and a half in two games, and at this rate they’ll be out of athletic tape by Thanksgiving.

“How many did I say?” Phil Jackson asked afterward with a thin grin.

Seven.

“Right,” the coach said.

He’d said they could start 0-7, his annual reach for candor and patience and perspective, and then Bryant’s right foot landed atop Ruben Patterson’s shoe after a jump shot in the second quarter, and then George, a replacement for the suspended Rick Fox, turned his left ankle four minutes later.

“I felt a lot of crunching,” Bryant said. “I just tried to relax. I knew from experience if I could walk off the court and put some pressure on it, I felt like I could come back in the game.”

Bryant did, but it was all but lost in the three-plus minutes he was in the locker room, as many of the Lakers took that opportunity to go to stone. They turned a 26-23 lead into a 36-29 deficit without Bryant. So emboldened, the Trail Blazers led by 22 points just before halftime, by 23 points late in the third quarter, and by 24 points before Trail Blazer Coach Maurice Cheeks took mercy on them all.

“They got momentum,” Jackson said. “We got confused.”

The Trail Blazers had to win, of course. If they’d lost with O’Neal on the bench and Bryant on one leg, owner Paul Allen would’ve had to sell off the franchise, $104-million bit by $104-million bit.

Bryant limped to the bus, 20 paces or so behind George. The Lakers play again Friday against the Clippers, and both players said they expected to participate, but it’s too soon to tell.

“It’s hurting pretty bad right now,” said Bryant, who did not play the final 7:21.

George arrived with a sore right ankle, turned during the final exhibition game and aggravated in Tuesday night’s loss to San Antonio. Then he landed awkwardly beneath the Laker basket, and trainer Gary Vitti led him, too, to the locker room.

“Our younger players, and our older players even, just couldn’t match the athleticism of the Blazers,” Jackson said.

Rasheed Wallace scored 28 points and Damon Stoudamire scored 16 for the Trail Blazers. Bryant had 25 points, 11 in the first quarter, and Slava Medvedenko scored 15 in 23 minutes.

The Lakers aren’t really much for fall anyway, being more winter and spring types when it comes to basketball, and when they awoke in Portland on Wednesday morning the temperature was in the mid-30s and the leaves on the trees were scarlet and gold.

Still, predicting early losses is one thing, experiencing them quite another, particularly for a proud team bent on its fourth consecutive championship. While the Lakers bore expressions of boredom with the whole topic of early failure, neither could they completely set it aside.

“I think we’ll get a win on Friday,” Jackson offered.

He’d probably like to know that the last team to win the NBA title after losing its first two games was the 1990-91 Chicago Bulls, his first champion.

“We’d like to figure out a way to get a win in the next few games,” guard Derek Fisher said, “get that off our backs, then just look forward to keeping guys healthy and in game conditions and not be too hard on ourselves to expect too much at this point.”

Two minutes into the second quarter, Bryant fell to the floor and held his right ankle. He had missed a jump shot and landed on Patterson’s foot, and now it was Patterson standing above him, his hand out. Earlier in the week, Patterson had again touted his defense against Bryant. Bryant took his hand Wednesday, but bristled afterward about who’s stopping whom these days.

“I don’t play one-on-one basketball,” he said. “You want to play one-on-one, he can holler at me in the off-season. We’ll go down to Rucker [Park, in Harlem].”

Bryant laughed.

“That’s so 1996 for me,” he said.