SHOOTOUT AT THE L.A. CORRAL

Home, at last. Home, for the last cavalry charge, the last defense, the last act, the final spin of this 16-day spectacular, soaked with overflowing emotions and impossible burdens.

If the Lakers’ fateful season ends today in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, it will at least come at home, under the championship banners, and before a crowd heavy with hope and anxiety.

If the Lakers’ majestic season moves on today to the NBA finals, it will come at home, nourished by a hungry Staples Center audience and surging toward the fulfillment of so many dreams.

Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, and Phil Jackson. At home. Where, supposedly, the heart is.

So, in the Lakers’ 99th game of the season, in their third playoff round, against their most familiar, and dangerous foe, the Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers play one more time, to decide everything that the teams have been unable to for the last seven months (plus 16 days).

“If you look in the past, all the great teams, everybody has been pushed to their limit before,” Bryant said. “Everybody’s been pushed to a seventh game.

“As a kid, watching these types of games, I used to love them. And to be in this type of situation, even though we’d rather be preparing for Indiana, is kind of cool.”

Neither the Lakers nor the Trail Blazers dared to predict an outcome, even guess at the pace and rhythm with which the game will unfold.

“No, you really don’t [know what will happen],” Jackson said evenly Saturday. “It’s so difficult to predict a Game 7. [But] it’s always nice to play them on your home court.”

The Lakers lost to Portland in the last two games at Staples, including Game 5 on Tuesday, a chance to clinch the series, but history favors the home team in Game 7 showdowns:

In NBA playoff history, the home team is 63-14 in seventh games; and in conference championship finales, the home team is 21-6.

All-time, the Lakers are 9-6 in seventh games, the last three coming in the last Laker championship season (1988), when the Lakers beat Utah, Dallas and Detroit in consecutive seven-game series.

But Trail Blazer forward Scottie Pippen, who won six championships with Jackson in Chicago, on Saturday seemed to sense a crack in the Laker historical imperative, especially after the last two Trail Blazer playoff victories, to rouse them from a 3-1 deficit. Only six teams in NBA history have come back from that hole to win.

“We know they’re a little bit of a fragile team,” Pippen said. “They don’t have the experience.

“They don’t truly believe in the triangle. Once you catch guys like that, then the things are working in your favor.”

The Lakers, though, approached their Saturday practice with at least an outward sense of calm, similar to their approach to Game 5 against Sacramento in the first round, when their 67-victory regular season threatened to be rendered immediately null and void.

“I think we’ve got to be relaxed,” forward Robert Horry said. “If we come out tight, everything’s either going to be short or long. We’ve got to come out relaxed and just play and have some fun.”

Said guard Brian Shaw: “Nobody’s thinking about this season being a failure, we’re just concentrating on winning tomorrow’s game. . . .

“We don’t feel weighed down. I think the media’s making more of it. . . . When we were up, 3-1, everybody was on the wagon, now it’s 3-3, everybody’s like, ‘Uh-oh!’

“We feel fine.”

A tightening of a Laker defense that suddenly has been yielding easy drives to the basket, a few more Laker shooters rising to the challenge, a decent free-throw outing (after Game 6’s dismal 13-for-27 effort), and the Lakers should win, players and coaches said Saturday.

If not . . . then at home is where the dream will die. Hard.

The Lakers have not lost three consecutive games this season, a particularly important statistic at this moment.

“I think our idea is that if we’re not good enough to keep them from winning three straight games, we’re probably not ready to go any further,” assistant coach Tex Winter said. “That’s kind of the way I look at it.

“I think that Phil looks upon it as the idea where, ‘Well, let’s see where we are. Let’s see if we’re ready to win championships.’ Because it’s not an easy process.”

The reason Portland is, has been, and continues to be the Lakers’ best and most bitter rival is that the Trail Blazer defense is populated by long and fast players to annoy O’Neal, Winter said.

“The way they’re playing Shaq on the post and the help that he’s getting, that’s putting us to our greatest test, I’d say,” Winter said.

“We can handle it. . . . But we’ve got to play smart. Keep the floor spaced, get the ball back out again. Make them rotate. . . .

“If [Ron] Harper doesn’t have a shot, if he doesn’t want to take it, he moves it on and somebody’s got to make a rotation and then you move it again and finally you end up with the ball in somebody’s hands who can shoot it.

“I think we’ll do a better job of doing that.”

Said Jackson: “I think we’re all anxious. There’s no doubt about it. Our anxiety level’s high and it should be.”

But other than suggesting that the Trail Blazers have been playing an illegal defense to keep O’Neal limited inside, Jackson offered no major strategic missives or motivational parries.

Either the Lakers are good enough, after all these months and all this tension, or they are not.

“As I told the team last night, it’s tough to beat a team three times in a row on their home court [which the Lakers could’ve done by winning Game 6 at the Rose Garden],” Jackson said.

“Well, guess what, Portland’s got to beat us three times in a row on our home court, and it’s going to be a damn tough game for them to do it.”

*

Something’s Afoot for Kobe

Bryant says he’s still a little tender, but after playing 48 minutes in Game 6, he expects to go all the way again today.

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He Can’t Put Finger on It

Pippen, who had problems controlling the ball in Portland because of dislocations, would take the same result today.

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Are Those Fighting Words?

If Rick Fox’s job was to get the Trail Blazers riled up with his aggressive play in Game 6,he deserves a raise.

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Jackson Needs No-Bull Approach

Maybe someone should tell the Laker coach that he doesn’t have Michael Jordan to get his team through its biggest game.

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