STRESSED OUT.

Capping a strife-filled season, the Blazers succumbed to the pressure applied by Shaq, Kobe and the Lakers in a first-round sweep

This not what coach Mike Dunleavy needed, not after the regular season his Trail Blazers had. He did not need more stress.

The Blazers had finished the regular season with seven losses in 10 games, dropping to the seventh seed in the Western Conference despite a 50-win season. His underachieving and often overweight reserve power forward, Shawn Kemp, had checked into drug rehabilitation for a cocaine problem. His rising-star shooting guard, Bonzi Wells, was out for the season with a torn ligament in his left knee. Dunleavy had endured six months of juvenile fussing and pouting over playing time on a star-packed roster worth nearly $90 million, by far the NBA's most expensive.

Dunleavy just wanted to get the playoffs started, but not this way. Why couldn't his Blazers have been matched against, say, the Suns or Mavericks?

There Dunleavy stood, on the floor of the Staples Center in Los Angeles the day before Game 2, in his familiar pose, arms folded tightly, shoulders slumped, eyes twitching like a man whose secretary has just informed him the IRS was holding on Line 1. After this season of strife, only one question could bring more tension to Dunleavy's already tightly wound nerves. "So, uh, coach ... what're you guys gonna do about Shaq?"

This is not what Dunleavy needed, a first-round matchup against the Lakers and behemoth center Shaquille O'Neal. What to do with O'Neal, who averaged 28.7 points and 12.7 rebounds during the regular season and 33.7 points in April?

"I don't know what to tell my guys about him," Dunleavy says, eyebrows lifted skyward. "We've got the guys we've got to deal with him, and that's all we can do, is deal with him."