Wow! The West Is Won

The past tugged at them, and the Portland Trail Blazers tugged harder.

They looked weighed down and desperate, and tripped toward failure again.

Then, at the moment of truth, as darkness threatened, Kobe Bryant ran faster, Brian Shaw shot truer, and Shaquille O'Neal jumped higher than anyone could have dreamed, including the Lakers themselves.

The Lakers saw the light ahead of them. They did not fall.

And the Lakers, in one quarter, almost blew up Staples Center in the process.

In the fourth quarter of the seventh game of the third playoff series of the first season of Phil Jackson's Laker coaching lifetime, the Lakers overcame a 15-point deficit, reeled in the Trail Blazers, and won a trip to the NBA finals with a staggering 89-84 victory before 18,997.

It was the biggest Game 7 fourth-quarter comeback in NBA history.

The Lakers, who have not been to the NBA finals since 1991, host Game 1 against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday.

"Yeah, that was a daunting uphill battle that we had to face," Jackson said after it was over. "We made it back."

It was more than daunting, of course.

The first three quarters, after which Portland led, 71-58, were the summation of every responsibility the Lakers had failed to live up to, and every significant victory they had failed to record during the last three seasons.

O'Neal couldn't get the ball. The other Lakers couldn't get it into the basket. The Trail Blazers were whizzing into the lane, and throwing in three-point baskets. Jackson was calling timeouts to yell at his players.

After giving up a basket and two free throws to pump the Portland lead to 75-60 with 10:28 to play, the Lakers stopped Portland 10 consecutive times, began making shots of their own and soon panic turned to hope, surprise and finally euphoria.

"You lose yourself in it," forward Glen Rice said of the explosion, which saw the Lakers outscore the Trail Blazers, 25-4, at one point.

"We were thinking keep going, keep applying the pressure, continue to keep going down on the offensive end and keep getting good shots and hopefully this team will fall in the end.

"And they did."

Said Jackson: "[Game] 7s are interesting games, aren't they? I've never seen one quite like that before, or had a team that I thought had run out of gas as much as I thought they had in the third quarter.

"Portland seemed to strike us for like nine straight possessions."