PORTLAND — It’s like climbing into the starting blocks next to Usain Bolt.
Or singing a duet with Carrie Underwood.
Or attempting to carry a scene with Tom Hanks.
It’s like every possible feeling of desperate inadequacy, this task of putting Saturday’s Trail Blazers game into words.
How to explain a comeback from a 23-point deficit over the final 13 minutes and 16 seconds? How to explain an 84-82 victory in Game 4 of a first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks? How to capture the magical improbability of it all?
You can’t. You shouldn’t even try.
But that would just leave a bunch of blank space next to my mug shot.
So, we’ll leave it to those who witnessed it, some with jaws agape, some with tears in their eyes, all with a measure of incredulity.
People such as Mark Mason, the public-address announcer at the Rose Garden.
“If you weren’t here to see it, you wouldn’t believe it,” Mason said. “It reminds me of 2000, when we blew that big lead in Los Angeles; this is the payback.”
Payback, they say, is, um, painful. But that depends upon which side you’re on.
“We were just saying, if you ever wanted to come to a game, this was the one,” said Morgan Boulette of Vancouver, who watched Portland’s Lazarus-like act from Section 208. “We were counting it down, 15 points, 14, 13 … as we got closer.”
And the funny thing is, they never stopped counting. They never stopped believing, along with 20,000 or so of their closest friends. The deficit kept getting smaller and smaller, the crowd louder and louder.
And as Portland’s fans helped lift the team upon a wave of emotion, the result was unforgettable.
“Believe me, I quit talking with about two minutes to go,” Blazers television analyst Mike Rice said. “I didn’t want to ruin it. Best comeback in 21 years.
“We kept saying, ‘It can’t happen. It can’t happen. They’ll come close, but it can’t happen.’ ”
And yet it did.
As if the raw theatrics of the comeback weren’t enough, they were enhanced by the fact that Portland finally tied the score on a 4-point play — a 4-point play! — by Brandon Roy with 1:06 to play. Roy then banked in the game-winner with 39 seconds to play, wrapping up his 18-point fourth quarter.
Who dreams this stuff up?
“I’ve seen over 2,000 Blazer games, maybe 2,050,” said Wayne Thompson, a former sportswriter who also has worked for the Blazers. “I get them mixed up, but I won’t get a finish like this mixed up. I’ll remember this. This is a game where they came from the dead, and one guy dug them up.”
In the process, Roy and the Blazers buried the Mavericks. It’s over. This series is over. There’s no way that Dallas, a team with a history of epic playoff failures, can recover from Saturday’s collapse.
Sure, the series is tied 2-2. Sure, Portland still needs to win at least one game in Dallas. But on the meter of lingering losses, this one goes to 11 on a scale of 10.
“Sometimes, you’re playing a good game and you’re behind,” said Chuck Charnquist, the Blazers’ historian and archivist, “but we were playing so bad. It’s just, it’s amazing.”
Amazing, indeed, starting with Roy’s 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter dancing around the rim before falling in. Continuing with the Blazers use of a desperation lineup — Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Fernandez, Gerald Wallace and Nicolas Batum — to start the fourth quarter. And concluding with Roy being mobbed by his teammates at the end of the game.
“Honestly, I don’t really know what I was feeling,” Roy said. “I just felt really good, but at the same time, when they were grabbing me, I just needed to embrace someone.”
No problem with that. There were plenty of hugs to go around Saturday.
Greg Jayne is Sports editor of The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4531, or by email at greg.jayne@columbian.com. To read his blog, go to columbian.com/weblogs/GregJayne
