Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 31, 2000)
Blazers kick LA. at home to keep series alive By Bob Baum The Associated Press LOS ANGELES — A celebra tion seemed inevitable. You could almost see the Western Confer ence championship banner hang i n g above the star studded crowd at the Staples Cen ter. Talk radio was already speculat ing on who Los Angeles would face in the NBA Finals. Then the Portland Trail Blazers spoiled everything. Led by Scottie Pippen, playing most of the game with two dislo cated fingers on his left hand, the Blazers stunned the Lakers 96-88 Tuesday night to stay alive in the conference finals. With Los Angeles up 3-2, the se ries shifts back to Portland for Game 6 on Friday night. In the first five games, the home team has won only once. “We’re going to have to take a little more time to win this series,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “I think that’s good for us as a basket ball team. This team hasn’t grown enough to understand the sub tleties of what we are trying to do and it is a good measure for us. ” The Lakers lost two in a row at home for the first time all season. A team so poised and confident in their weekend sweep in Portland could never get rolling. Portland never trailed. Despite injuring his fingers late in the first quarter when he was called for an offensive foul against Robert Hor ry, Pippen had 22 points, six steals and four blocked shots. In the process, Pippen broke Michael Jordan’s record for career playoff steals with 380. Jordan’s record was 376. “That’s just Pip being a warrior. This is no time to sit out,” Port land’s Rasheed Wallace said. “Like the other night when I hurt my ankle. That team is just too tough for us to sit out. ’ ’ Jackson said he told Pippen he shouldn’t even have been playing in the game after elbowing John Salley in the back of the head late in Portland’s homecourt loss in Game 4 Sunday. “He shouldn’t have been play ing in this ballgame,” Jackson said. “He clearly threw a cheap shot elbow to the back of the head and he just got fined $10,000. I wanted to tell him that he was a presence who shouldn’t have been there.” In the latest of what haw been a back-and-forth bickering between the player and his former coach, Pippen was unimpressed by Jack son’s opinion. "Phil is not my coach. I’m not listening to nothing you tell me about Phil. Have a good day,” said Pippen, who then left the postgame news conference. Wallace was just 7-for-21 from the field, but scored 22 points, in cluding seven of eight free throws, and grabbed 10 rebounds. Steve Smith added 13 points, and Arvy das Sabonis 12. Two reserves who barely caused a ripple in the se ries, Brian Grant and Detlef Schrempf, added nine each. Shaquille O’Neal did his best to make it the big night everyone ex pected with 31 points and 21 re ii This game validates for us what it is we're do ing and that we can get it done. It's just a matter of us making it happen for ourselves. Mike Dunleavy Blazers head coach . . bounds. Ron Harper added 14 points. But Kobe Bryant made only four of 13 shots, scored 17 points and committed six turnovers before fouling out with 4:45 to play. Glen Rice was l-for-8 from the field and 0-for-5 from 3-point range, finish ing with four points. The Lakers were just 6-for-27 from 3-point range and shot 38 percent from the field. “I thought we played pretty good defense. We couldn’t put the ball in the basket,” O'Neal said. “I think we tried to put them away with all 3s. It’s disappointing. We just have to learn from this.” Portland coach Mike Dun leavy’s defensive tactic of double and triple-teaming O’Neal and leaving others open worked to near perfection. “This game validates for us what it is we’re doing and that we can get it done,” Dunleavy said. “It’s just a matter of us making it happen for ourselves. It’s a high risk business, and we’re taking chances. We’re leaving a lot of people open.” Bryant sprained his right foot in the first half, but said it wasn’t a big factor in his game. X-rays after the game were negative. “If we’re going to be a champi onship team, we have to go through some adverse situations,” Bryant said. Then he mentioned the noisy crowd in Portland and the prospect of facing a deciding Game 7 Sunday in Los Angeles. “I think it’s good for us,” he said. Even though they never led, the Lakers were just a short run away from taking the lead through most of-thegame. Trailing 80-67 entering the fourth quarter, the Lakers mount ed one challenge. Bryant sank two free throws with 10:02 to play, then scored on a layup and was fouled, making it 82-74 with 9:33 remaining. O’Neal waved his arms to get the crowd roaring, but after a time out, Bryant missed the free throw. Grant scored inside and was fouled by Horry for a three-point play to boost the lead back to 87 76, and the Lakers were finished. Los Angeles closed to 72-67 on Harper’s reverse layup with 1:52 left in the third. But the Lakers fol lowed with three consecutive turnovers, and the Blazers scored the final eight points of the period for an 80-67 lead. The Lakers are 43-7 at home this season, but three of those losses came against Portland. The Blazers led 52-45 at the break on Pippen’s 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer. The Lakers shot 31 percent in the first half, 22 percent in the sec ond quarter (4-for-18). The Lakers were 3-for-13 from 3-point range in the first half, but made 14 of 15 free throws, while Portland was 11-for-l 7 at the line. Pippen scored 12 in the first quarter on 5-for-5 shooting, but was only 2-for-5 at the foul line. Notes: O’Neal made his first three free throws to run his string to 15 without a miss over three games.... Portland was 9-for-15 at the foul line in the first quarter, while Los Angeles was 3-for-3.... The Lakers were called for 11 fouls in the first quarter, three apiece on Harper and Brian Shaw and two apiece on Bryant and Rice.... Smith drew three fouls in 11/2 minutes in the second quar ter. ... Horry was 0-for-6 from the field in the first half. ... Midway through the first quarter, referee Joe Crawford called a technical on Wallace, his first since he was thrown out of Game 1 with two technicals. Devils strike first with decisive victory over Stars, 7-3 By Alan Robinson The Associated Press EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The New Jersey Devils sur prised the Dallas Stars in nearly every way possible — with their speed, their persistence, their nonstop scoring. Most of all, they surprised themselves. Petr Sykora scored twicenn a four-point night and Ken Daneyko, who has played every post season game in Devils his tory, scored his first playoff goal in five seasons as New Jersey’s top line embarrassed Dallas’ stars in a commanding 7-3 vic tory Tuesday night. “This team worried us,” Dev ils goaltender Martin Brodeur said. “We have a lot of respect for them, and we still do. We knew we couldn’t let up at all.” They didn’t. Sykora also as sisted on Jason Arnott’s two goals as the Devils, attempting to become the first Eastern Con ference team to win the Stanley Cup since they did it five years ago, badly outplayed the de fending champions at their own game. The Devils’ top line of Syko ra, Arnott and Patrik Elias com bined for four goals and now have nine in the last five games. By contrast, the Stars’ Brett Hull and Mike Modano, the top two scorers in the playoffs, went scoreless, with Brodeur making a key save of Hull’s shot less than a minute before the Devils took a 3-1 lead. “We were flat and a step late all night,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. “I think our whole group really struggled in our own zone with the quick ness. I don’t think we’ve played against a group of forwards this quick before, and we made a lot of mistakes because of it.” The Devils, considered the underdogs just as they were when they upset Detroit in four games in the 1995 finals, can take a 2-0 lead in the best-of seven series by winning Thurs day night at home. The Stars are 11-1 at home in the playoffs, but even they can’t like their chances if they go back to Reunion Arena down two games. “This puts a lot of pressure on us, but we know we’re going to play a better game,” Hitch cock said. The game was vintage Devils — vintage 1995, that is. The Devils followed still-new coach Larry Robinson’s game plan to perfection. They seized the critical early lead, dusted off the neutral-zone trap that was so effective in ’95 to shut down Dallas’ scorers and let Brodeur stop the shots that sneaked through their defense. “We had some goals squeak through there for a change, and our guys were skating well,” Robinson said. “But I don’t con sider this a 7-3 game. I’ve seen Dallas come back before, and we’re in for a game Thursday.” Dallas goaltender Eddie Belfour was no better than the forwards in front of him. Belfour, who had allowed two or fewer goals in 12 of his previ ous 13 games, yielded six goals on 18 shots before being re placed by Manny Fernandez with 16:58 left. The Stars allowed just 13 goals in the entire Avalanche se ries — the fewest in 50 years in a seven-game Stanley Cup semi final series. Belfour took a decongestant, antibiotics and cold medicine before the game, and wishes now he hadn’t. “It affected my judgment,” he said. When did he realize it? “After they scored the sixth goal,” he said. Still, the Devils’ oft-over looked offense obviously am bushed a baffled Belfour and the Stars, who looked fatigued and off their game almost from the opening minute despite having three days off since eliminating Colorado on Satur day. “They have a history of slow starts in the playoffs,” the Dev ils’ Bobby Holik said. “This is not surprising, they played a day later than we did and they traveled. No one thinks this is over. They’re too good to feel that way.” The Devils, known more for their give-no-ground neutral zone trap, were the NHL’s sec ond-highest scoring team dur ing the season, but Robinson reshaped their game after suc ceeding the fired Robbie Ftorek with eight games left in the reg ular season. Robinson sold the Devils on returning to their ’95 style, in which the trapping defense set up an opportunistic offense, rather than vice versa. But even Robinson couldn’t have expect ed this, not against a deter mined, defense-driven team that Hitchcock said was ex tremely focused on winning a second Cup. “This series, just like in 1995, we have a lot of respect for the team we’re playing,” Brodeur said. “We were scared of that series in ’95, they were sup posed to beat us bad, and next thing you know the series is over. This time around, it’s the same thing — we know they have a lot more to give.” The Stars have already matched the worst result of the last four defending champions — Detroit, Pittsburgh and two of Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oil ers teams — who returned to the finals the year after winning the cup. All four of those teams This puts a lot of pressure on us, but we know we’re going to play a better game. Ken Hitchcock Dallas Stars head coach y± repeated as champion, and only one lost even one game in the fi nals. After Arnott and Stars de fenseman Darryl Sydor traded goals in the first period, the game quickly got away from Dallas in the second period. And the biggest goal of all was scored by perhaps the least-like ly player. John Madden won a face-off in the Stars’ end that bounced to Daneyko, who didn’t score a goal all season. Daneyko teed up a knuckleball-type shot from the top of the left circle that somehow eluded Belfour at 2:52 of the second for his first play off goal in 49 games since June 5, 1995. The Stars should have known then they were done. And they were, even if the Devils weren’t. “We wanted (Daneyko’s goal) to be the game-winner,” Brodeur said. “He’s been the heart and soul for New Jersey for the last 15 years, and it was great for him to score a goal like that in the Stanley Cup final.” Sykora effectively finished them off at 10:28 with the first of his two goals, grabbing Elias’ blind pass from behind the net and slipping it by Belfour, who began the game with a 1.88 goals-against average: “He hasn’t had too many nights like that,” Hitchcock said of Belfour. Defenseman Scott Stevens, whose punishing hits left the Flyers’ Daymond Langkow and Eric Lindros with concussions in the Eastern Conference fi nals, made it 4-1 at 16:04 with a soft wrist shot from the left point, and the rout was on. “Individuals are playing well, and that means the team is play ing well,” Stevens said. “Every body was expecting a boring, slow game and I remember thinking, ‘Geez, this is a lot of scoring.’” Sykora and Arnott scored again in the third period, and Sergei Brylin added a goal be fore the Stars’ Jon Sim and for mer Devils captain Kirk Muller scored meaningless goals 12 seconds apart. The Devils, who won all four games of the Eastern Conference finals against Philadelphia in which they scored first, did so again. Elias’ wraparound at tempt deflected off Belfour’s glove to Sykora, who swept a pass across the slot to Arnott at 7:22 for his fifth playoff goal. The first goal in the first game of a Stanley Cup final can be critical to determining the early momentum — the Game 1 win ner has won the cup 79 percent of the time. Stars defenseman Derian Hatcher left in the third period with a slight hyperextension of his right knee, but Hitchcock expects him to play in Game 2.
