Horry comes up big

The Los Angeles Lakers have done it again. With four seconds left in the third game of their series against the Portland Trail Blazers, the team leading 2-0 but down 91-89 in this one, Kobe Bryant found an unmanned Robert Horry all alone in the corner who rose and nailed the game winning three. The shot not only one the game for the Lakers but also closed out another sweep of the Blazers, their second straight in the opening round and third overall ousting of league’s most expensive team.

"I guess we have (the Blazers') number," Bryant said. And on Horry’s shot?

"Cash," Bryant said. "It's hard to describe what it feels like when the ball is floating through the air like that, and you know it's going in. All I was thinking was, `Cash.' "

"I was kind of scared, I just threw it up there," Horry said, smiling the whole time. "It was actually designed for Kobe to try to penetrate and get a 2, we were just trying to tie the game up. But Pippen bit a little too far and Kobe kicked it to me

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Blazers fail to heed Cheek’s words

Throughout the first two games the Portland Trail Blazers plan has been to get the ball inside to Rasheed Wallace. So far the players have failed to listen to coach Maurice Cheeks’ instructions, instead settling for jumpshot after jumpshot as the team dropped the opening two games to the defending two-time Champion Lakers.

"Jump shot after jump shot," Cheeks told the Oregonian newspaper. "For three days [between Games 1 and 2], we practiced posting up, then the day comes for us to actually do it and we don't do it. We shoot jump shots. That part is puzzling to me."

The team has made 62 of 162 shots (38.3%) with Bonzi Wells and Damon Stoudamire being the biggest factors. Wells is seven for 23 in the first two games of the series and Stoudamire is two for 15.

"They have had wide-open shots, but they just haven't made them," Cheeks said. "All you can do is keep putting the ball in their hands and keep letting them take the same shots."

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Lakers do just enough

They didn’t look like last season’s 15-1 Lakers, but Los Angeles will certainly take the win. It is the deadly duo who struck again to conquer the inconsistent Portland Trailblazers, with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal leading the way with 34 and 25 points respectively.

"I think it just took a while for us to get adjusted," said Bryant. "It was a grind. We tried to get a 15-point lead but could never really do it." "Everything about their game stepped up in the second half," said Blazers Coach Maurice Cheeks. "They are a seasoned team. The second half is indicative of the way this team wins championships."

The Lakers have eliminated the Blazers the past two seasons, including the now infamous choking in the fourth quarter of Game 7 in 2000. Last season the Blazers were routed in the opening round, going down in straight sets. "It was a fine game," Jackson insisted, writing the number 14 on the whiteboard with a black marker indicating the number of wins the team still needs, just as he did last year.

Los Angeles won the game 95-87, with game 2 scheduled in L.A. Thursday.

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