`STUPID' LAKERS TAKE CAPITAL LOSS : WASHINGTON 96 LAKERS 86.

Byline: Howard Beck Daily News Staff Writer

It was an 11-day road trip with six games in nine nights, but it felt more like an expedition.

The Lakers departed Feb. 20 on a search to find themselves, to recover some long-lost artifact from their own recent past, to retrieve that fossilized version of a team that knew how to win.

They return home today with nothing to show for their trouble.

Monday night's road-trip finale at MCI Center ended in a 96-86 loss to the Washington Wizards, leaving the Lakers still searching for answers, mystified by their own inexplicable ineptitude. Or, in the words of team captain Shaquille O'Neal, ``We're a stupid team.''

Stupid, as in the lessons learned in a three-game winning streak last week were forgotten in two days. The heady defense and crisp offense that defeated Milwaukee, Indiana and Minnesota gave way to anarchy in back-to-back losses to the Knicks and Wizards.

So the big road trip marked in thick red pen as ``pivotal'' to the Lakers' season ended in a 3-3 record and a two-game losing streak. Not to mention a starting point guard lost for three weeks and a 19-year-old All-Star just plain lost.

And the team's frustrated leader making bizarre analogies to explain the funk.

``We don't learn,'' O'Neal said. ``We're gonna learn one day, when we're in the garage and the car's on, get that garage door up. If not, you're gonna die - from being stupid. If you're smart, you put up the garage door so the carbon monoxide will get out.''

Right.

In a saner moment, O'Neal clarified that smart play means not taking jump shots when the shots aren't passing through the ropes hanging from the orange rim at the end of the court.

``When the jump shot ain't falling, you can't be shooting 3s,'' he said. ``Certain guys have gotta look in the mirror. . . . If you're shooting 20 percent, you're not playing well. You gotta mix it up.''

He didn't point fingers, but the culprits were everywhere Monday in a 40.5 percent shooting effort. Eddie Jones got 19 points but missed 14 of 22 shots. Rick Fox scored 11 but missed 7 of 9. Derek Fisher put together a 10-assist, eight-rebound game but missed 6 out of 8 shots.

Kobe Bryant, who has added an ear infection to his shooting ills, missed 5 of 7, scored a season-low-tying four points and sat the entire fourth quarter.

Few things went right for the Lakers - O'Neal's 28 points and 15 rebounds, Robert Horry's 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting and rookie Shea Seals getting his first NBA points on a cherry-pick dunk with 36 seconds left.

None of which mattered in a game that featured a near triple-double from the Wizards' Chris Webber. Webber put up a game-high 31 points to go with 10 rebounds and eight assists. His eight-point spurt in the final three minutes of the third quarter keyed an 11-4 run that turned a tie into a seven-point deficit for the Lakers, and the visitors never got closer than that.

``We just flat-out got our butt whipped,'' Jones said.

From a two-win, five-loss start to the season's second half to a three-game winning streak to a new two-game skid, the Lakers are confounded.

``We can't keep (fooling) ourselves,'' Jones said. ``Sometimes you get happy on the farm. . . . When you're playing well, you forget things. You forget how you got those wins.''

Or as coach Del Harris said, ``We lost our discipline.'' And possibly some stamina. ``There's no question they were tired. That's part of the NBA challenge.''

Rest isn't on the schedule. The Lakers come home to play three games in five nights, against Indiana, San Antonio and Detroit. They had hoped to return home with a renewed sense of direction. Their expedition turned up only the same old questions.

``We didn't leave home wanting to be 3-3. Three and three is almost embarrassing,'' Fox said, ``because we're a better team than that.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Color) Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal shoots over Washington's Ben Wallace. L.A. lost to finish the road trip 3-3, which Rick Fox found embarrassing.

(2) Washington forward Darvin Ham, left, blocks a shot by the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, who has been slumping.

Doug Mills/Associated Press

Box: GAME RECAP