IT DOESN'T FIGURE, SO LET'S SACK THE HACK.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

But does it work?

That's the question we should have been asking all along about the endgame strategy known as Hack-a-Shaq.

Not ``Is it pretty?'' Not ``Is it sportsmanlike?'' The NBA rules committee will hack away at those questions soon enough anyway, with a little friend-of-the-court help from NBC.

Does it work?

From the way coach Mike Dunleavy conducted the final minutes of his Trail Blazers' Game 3 playoff loss to the Lakers Friday night in Portland, it appears he found the answer to that question without our help.

Let's think it through anyway.

The idea of Hack-a-Shaq - employed most notably by Dunleavy and before him by Dallas Mavericks coach Don Nelson - is to take advantage of Shaquille O'Neal's lone weakness by forcing him to shoot a lot of free throws. Dunleavy tried to do that in Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference finals by ordering the Blazers to foul O'Neal - even when he didn't have the ball - 12 times in the last 5 1/2 minutes.

O'Neal has sank only about 50 percent of his free throws this season and in his career. Dunleavy figured hacking Shaq would accomplish two things: It would hold the Lakers to only about one point a possession in the game's crucial minutes. And, because the Lakers wouldn't have the chance to run down the 24-second clock, it would give the Blazers more possessions and shots of their own.

More shots couldn't hurt the Blazers, who trailed by 12 points in Game 1 when Dunleavy began the Hack-a-Shaq.

It didn't work. Shaq made exactly half of his 24 free throws in the final 5:27. The Blazers missed most of their shots, committed turnovers and failed to dent the Lakers' lead as Los Angeles won 105-94.

Dunleavy defended the tactic, saying it didn't work simply because the Blazers' offense failed to take advantage of opportunities to score two points each time Shaq scored one.

Maybe Dunleavy's problem is that he was a psychology major at the University of South Carolina, not a math major.

If you foul a 50 percent free-throw shooter, you'd better assume he'll make 50 percent of his free throws, giving his team one point per possession, on average.

One point per possession isn't much less than the Lakers have been scoring against the Blazers anyway (or what the typical NBA team would score by shooting slightly worse than 50 percent from the floor). The Lakers were scoring 1.3 points per possession in game before the Hack-a- Shaq started. For the Blazers that's not a big enough difference.

They trailed 96-84 when they started fouling. Each team had 15 possessions in the final 5:27. The Lakers scored 13 points (a little less than you'd expect) to give them 109. For the Blazers to catch up, they would have had to score 25 points in 15 possessions. They would have had to make 13 of 15 shots from 2-point range, or 9 of 15 3-pointers, or some combination thereof; or they'd have had to go on an offensive-rebounding tear to get more shots.

Obviously, if O'Neal made many less than 50 percent from the line, perhaps because the pressure got to him, the Blazers' task would have been easier. But that's no more likely than the Lakers going into a drought from the floor if the Blazers had concentrated on playing defense instead of fouling; that way the Blazers might have forced some turnovers and been able to take advantage of their superior transition speed.

There was always the possibility O'Neal would make more than 50 percent, too.

Hack-a-Shaq didn't come into play in Monday's Game 2, a blowout in the fourth quarter. In Game 3, the Blazers trailed by eight points with less than six minutes left in the game. The situation was similar to Game 1 except that the Blazers had committed only one team foul so far in the quarter. If Dunleavy wanted to use the Hack-a-Shaq, he could have ordered his players to commit enough innocuous, non-shooting fouls to get the Blazers to five and guarantee that any subsequent foul committed against Shaq would put him at the free-throw line.

But Dunleavy didn't take that tack. Maybe he figured out that Hack-a- Shaq is not a good way to play catchup. As it was, by playing defense, the Blazers caught up with a 12-5 run before Ron Harper's baseline jumper gave the Lakers a 93-91 victory.

Hack-a-Shaq's bark was worse than its bite ever could have been. Not once in the final 5:52 did O'Neal handle the ball in position to score. The Lakers probably wanted to keep him off the line.

Is there a logical role for Hack-a-Shaq? Maybe. The NBC announcers reported with some surprise that Dunleavy had said he'd use the tactic ``even'' if the Blazers led. Why the surprise? Hacking when you're ahead makes more sense - by locking the other team into about one point per possession you're preventing it from going on a spurt.

Of course, everything works better when you're ahead. Advice to Blazers: Play basketball, take a lead to the final minutes, then sack the hack and keep doing what got you there.