Blazers Stay Alive

April 29, 1998 / 2:48 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Shaquille O'Neal can't do it alone.

The Portland Trail Blazers proved that Tuesday night, staying alive in the NBA playoffs with a 99-94 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers despite O'Neal's 36 points and 16 rebounds.

"It was very frustrating," O'Neal said. "When I give the ball up, my guys have gotta make those guys pay. Our guys gotta take it personally when they leave them open and go double me. We got to hit that shot."

The Lakers were 3-for-20 from 3-point range.

Damon Stoudamire earned his first playoff victory, scoring nine of his 18 points as the Blazers surged from behind in the fourth quarter.

"I've just dreamed about winning a playoff game," Stoudamire said. "The momentum has switched just a little. Now we've got to adjust and match them and, with that home crowd, we'll just see what happens."

The Lakers still lead the best-of-5 first-round series 2-1, but the Blazers can pull even with a home-court victory in Game 4 on Thursday night.

Walt Williams scored 17 points as the Blazers' reserves outscored their Lakers' counterparts 26-12. Isaiah Rider had 18 points and 10 rebounds. He was only 6-for-19 from the field, but sealed the victory with four free throws in the final 8.1 seconds.

O'Neal was 16-for-23 from the field, including 6-for-7 in the fourth quarter, but made only four of 12 free throws. Two of the misses came with 59 seconds remaining and the Lakers trailing 94-90.

In fact, all the Lakers were just 19-for-35 from the line.

After a miserable offensive night, Portland's Rasheed Wallace came alive in the fourth quarter to score nine of his 11 points, but he missed two free throws with 58 seconds left and the Blazers up 94-90.

Derek Fisher made one of two free throws with 15.7 seconds remaining to slice the Blazers' lead to 94-91.

Williams, a 91 percent free-throw shooter in the regular season, made one of two with 15 seconds left to boost Portland's lead to 95-91.

Eddie Jones threw the ball away trying to get it to O'Neal on the next possession, and Rider put the game away from there. Fisher's 3-point bank shot with 15 seconds was the Lakers' lone field goal in the last three minutes.

"We played a tough game and stayed with it this time," coach Mike Dunleavy said. "We can play a lot better, though."

Brian Grant had 13 points and 12 rebounds as the Blazers dominated the boards 52-38. Rick Fox scored 15 for Los Angeles.

"If we'd rebounded, we'd be fine," Lakers coach Del Harris said. "Rebounding and the defense is wehre it all starts if you are going to win playoff basketball."

Stoudamire, traded to his hometown of Portland from Toronto in February, scored seven consecutive points during a 15-3 run that put the Blazer up 84-77 with 7:55 to play.

With nothing else working, the Lakers kept pounding the ball into O'Neal.

His dunk with 4:29 to play cut Portland's lead to 88-87.

But Wallace, whose 3-pointer tied it 74-74 earlier in the quarter, scored inside, and Arvydas Sabonis followed with a dunk, on a pass from Wallace, to put Portland up 92-87 with 3:20 to play. O'Neal's inside basket with three minutes to go made it 92-89.

The Lakers sputtered from there.

"We didn't play smart, and we didn't play aggressive," O'Neal said. "They played harder than we did."

Fox scored eight in the third quarter, when the Lakers led by as many as six. They were up 72-69 entering the final quarter.

O'Neal had six dunks while scoring 22 in the first half. Sixteen of the Lakers' 20 first-half field goals were layups or stuff shots. Still, Los Angeles led only 50-48 at the half.

Portland, which complained about the officiating after the Lakers shot 31 more free throws than the Blazers in Game 2, were 26-for-34 from the line Tuesday.

Notes: The Lakers' Kobe Bryant, Nick Van Exel and Elden Campbell were a combined 3-for-18 from the field. ... It is the second year in a row that the Blazers have avoided a sweep against the Lakers with a win in Game 3. They lost Game 4 last year. ... Portland has been knocked out in the first round the past five years. ... The Blazers are 3-0 at home against the Lakers this season. ... The loss snapped Los Angeles' seven-game winning streak and seven-game road winning streak, dating back to the regular season.