And the Blazers are a team that can average 101 points per game in this iron-blood era, and they're still a team that can both score big and win games.
The Lakers' defensive prep for facing the Blazers really wasn't thorough. After the Utah Jazz won their second-to-last game, the Lakers knew they couldn't climb to first in the West anymore, because the Jazz's final opponent was the Spurs. On paper that was supposed to be a marquee matchup, the regular season games between them had been evenly matched, but the Spurs started tanking. The Jazz needed to win the finale to lock up the first seed in the West, so they definitely wouldn't mess around. Once the Jazz won that penultimate game, Del Harris immediately shifted to prepping for the first round of the playoffs, thinking, "We just go all out in the last game and that's that…"
