Harper’s Effort Was a Real Pip

PORTLAND, Ore. — Ron Harper, who has two wobbly legs, three Chicago Bulls’ championship rings and zero inclination to stay quiet for long, is the Lakers’ jackal-of-all-trades, and enormously proud of it.

He doesn’t score much, but he scored the most important Laker basket in many years, a 19-foot jumper with 29.9 seconds left to provide the winning margin in the Lakers’ crucial 93-91 Game 3 victory Friday over the Portland Trail Blazers.

He doesn’t play as much as Shaquille O’Neal or Kobe Bryant, but he plays at the end, when the pressure rises and the pipes are about to burst.

He doesn’t seem to do much, but everything he does seems to matter to the Laker cause.

He isn’t a star, but when the Western Conference finals threatened to tilt out of the Lakers’ control Friday, as so many other playoff series have over the last three seasons, it was Harper who seemed to do the most to convince the Lakers they could push it right back.

With today’s Game 4 here transformed into a desperation moment for the Trail Blazers (a loss would put them down, 3-1, with the series returning to Staples Center), could you believe that gimpy-kneed, sling-shooting, amiable, 35-year-old Ron Harper is the one who helped put them there?

If there is a tougher, knottier, thornier side to the Lakers these days--a battle-tested, survive-at-all-costs side--is it because Harper was signed in the middle of training camp when everybody else in the NBA thought he should retire?

“We had to stand on our own legs and start making some kind of a statement,” Coach Phil Jackson said before the Lakers’ Saturday practice when asked about Harper’s Game 3 performance.

“It didn’t have to be verbal. But we had to physically start getting into the ballgame and start to move as a team. . . .

“They came out with this kind of air about their game, and Harper carried that a little bit, you know, not being intimidated by the game itself, by the crowd, by the pressure they felt.”

So far in these playoffs, Harper has been a provocateur, an adjunct coach, a worried leader, an offensive liability-turned-clutch shooter and a defensive stopper.

He has been part Phil Jackson, part Scottie Pippen, part Steve Kerr, part Dennis Rodman.

On Friday--and probably for as long as his good friend Pippen leads the Portland charge--Harper was all of those things, starting with some Rodman theatrics to trigger the Laker emotional counter-charge.

“I mean, they came down to our gym [in Portland’s Game 2 victory] and they were hollering and screaming, oooh and aaah. . . . So, we’re going to do it to them back,” said Harper, who engaged in several heated conversations with Rasheed Wallace in the early going and constantly yelled back and forth with Pippen.

“Scottie was the main guy doing it. He’s the one they feed off of. Whatever he does, they feed off of it.”

On Friday, the Lakers fed off of Harper, who said he was only answering the Trail Blazer mouthiness during Game 2, when Jackson said Portland’s players were “kind of jackals” on the Staples sidelines.

“Hey, if they’re going to talk trash, I’m going to talk the trash back,” Harper said. “I ain’t going to be scared of them, they’re not going to be scared of me.

“I’ve been telling the guys on this team, if they’re going to whoop and holler and scream, we can do the same thing back at them.”

Harper said that, despite the heated words, he and Pippen remain steadfast friends, though Pippen did laugh when asked whom he thought was most surprised by Harper making the game-winning shot, and said, “Harper, without a doubt.”

Said Harper: “Me and Scottie were jawing a lot. We’re always going to jaw a lot. We’re friends. We’re closest friends.

“[But] when we step on the floor, he’s got his team’s jersey on; I’ve got my team’s jersey on. And we just go out and do our jobs. He was jawing at me some, I was jawing at him back.”

Harper provided a lift beyond his verbal brawling too, deciding to leave Damon Stoudamire to chase the ball all over the floor, disrupting the Portland offense with his long arms and active swiping.

For most of the third quarter, Harper became the Lakers’ own version of Pippen, who had so much success in the first two games leaving Harper and terrorizing O’Neal and Bryant.

“Scottie was doing it, so I felt that I could go out and do the same thing,” Harper said.

Was it fun?

“It takes too much energy, man,” Harper said. “I’m an old guy. Let me tell you, he can have it.

“Run and trap the ball and go back to find your man--took too much energy out of me, man. I’m not doing that all game. So don’t ask me all game. Only if I feel good am I going to do that part of the game.

“It was just an instinct thing. I felt that they were getting into their sets easily.”

Then came the last Laker offensive set.

Bryant drew the defenders in the lane, and whisked a long pass to a wide-open Harper, who had told Bryant during the previous timeout that the pass should come his way.

Up to that point, Harper, who came into the game shooting 35.4% in the playoffs, had already scored more points (10) in Game 3 than he had in any postseason game this season.

“The only thing I told the guys was, ‘My man is not guarding me,’ ” Harper said. “‘He hasn’t guarded me the first two games and he’s not doing it now. Scottie ain’t guarded me all series long.’

“I said, ‘I’m going to find a nice spot there for a shot.’ ”

GAME 4 TODAY

LAKERS at PORTLAND

12:30, Channel 4

Lakers lead series, 2-1

ALSO

SHAW SUSPENDED FOR GAME TODAY

Laker guard penalized for leaving bench during Pippen-Fox fracas. Page 10

J.A. ADANDE

Game 3 was an important moment for O’Neal and Bryant in particular. Page 10

EASTERN FINALS

Pacers lead series, 2-1

NEW YORK 98, INDIANA 95

Even without Ewing and Camby, Knicks get back in the series. Page 11

MARK HEISLER

Thank goodness the Knick-Heat series is over, but East is still least. Page 12