15-0 WOULD SEPARATE L.A. FROM ALL THE REST.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

EL SEGUNDO - It would mark an implausibly perfect ending to a spectacularly imperfect season.

It would serve as a bold, beautiful signature for a team that risks being remembered none too flatteringly as Those Feudin' Lakers.

It looms as the last remaining hope for injecting a pleasantly buzzing tension into NBA playoffs that seem not quite challenging enough for the defending champions.

Since the Lakers seized control of the 2001 postseason by winning on the road in the first two games of their semifinal series against the San Antonio Spurs, it's assumed they'll stroll on to the NBA Finals and walk right through whichever poor saps the weaker conference serves up.

Where's the excitement in any of that?

But becoming the first NBA team to go through the playoffs without losing a game - now that is a goal to quicken the heartbeats of the Lakers and their fans.

``It would definitely set us apart,'' Rick Fox said Wednesday after a practice session.

The Lakers, going into Friday night's tipoff against the Spurs at Staples Center, are 9-0 in the playoffs and have won 17 games in a row if you include the regular season. They need to win six more to complete a clean sweep of four rounds and a 15-0 playoff record.

The closest any NBA team has come to playoff perfection is the Philadelphia 76ers' 12-1 record in 1983, when the first round was best-of- three games instead of the modern best-of-five.

The Lakers are talking about it, or the Lakers are trying hard not to talk about it, depending on which player you ask about it.

``We can talk about it until (Friday),'' Fox said with a smile. ``Then we play Game 3 and a lot of things can change.''

Which is why, as seasoned pros in the business of looking way too far ahead, we bring this up now, before the Lakers go and drop a game.

``We hear it, we read it,'' Derek Fisher said. ``But putting it on the bulletin board would be a fatal mistake.''

Fisher, ever the voice of reason, notes that if the Lakers dwelled on long-range possibilities, they'd risk breaking the spell that created the streak in the first place.

``History isn't made until it's made,'' Fisher said. ``We've been able to put this streak together because we're focused on one game at a time. If we continue to do that, that's what might give us a chance of accomplishing something like (an undefeated playoff run).''

Besides, the Lakers are afraid that if they start predicting sweeps, they'll fire up the Spurs, not that there's much danger of that.

Of course, players generally don't think about history as much as reporters and fans do.

``To tell you the truth, I don't care,'' Kobe Bryant said after a question about going 15-0. ``As long as we're holding the trophy at the end, I don't care.''

But the Lakers should care. A perfect postseason would be a sensational achievement - which they must realize, having failed to sweep a single series or win more than three games in a row on their stumbling march to the NBA championship last spring.

A perfect postseason would be this Lakers generation's answer to the 1971-72 team's NBA-record 33-game winning streak. It would insert these Lakers into discussions of sports' greatest streaks, like the 1972 Miami Dolphins' 17-0 NFL season.

It would be all the more remarkable for several reasons:

--It would be so completely unexpected. These aren't the 67-win Lakers of 2000, a team that ran off 19 consecutive victories in the regular season. These are the 56-win Lakers, barely a ``team'' at some stages, never on stride until April.

If these Lakers break into the top-10 list of NBA teams with the best playoff winning percentages, they will stand out as the member with the worst regular-season record.

--It would not be the result of luck or favorable scheduling. The Lakers would have to defeat San Antonio, which was better in the regular season, and more likely than not Philadelphia, which had the same record as they in the regular season.

None of the teams in the historical top 10 for playoff winning percentage had to go through two opponents that had equal or better regular-season records. And none had to overcome the lack of homecourt advantage in the semifinal round, a task the Lakers are handling nicely against San Antonio.

--It would complete a 23-game winning streak, begun during the late- season struggle for playoff seedings, a stretch in which the Lakers had to face playofound Utah, Phoenix, Portland twice and Minnesota twice.

Here's one way to measure how impressive the string is, even if it ends Friday: Of the Lakers 17 consecutive victories, 14 have been against teams with regular-season records above .500. Of the 1971-72 Lakers' 33 victories in a row, 15 were against teams that finished with ``winning'' records.

(Not-that-you-asked department: In the Dolphins' 17-0 season, they defeated only five teams with winning records.)

Whether 15-0 in the playoffs is better than 33 in a row early in the regular season, can be debated into the night.

Whether 15-0 in the playoffs is something none of the NBA's greatest teams ever accomplished, is indisputable.

That makes the Lakers' chances for a perfect ending something to think about, even as they try not to.

ON A ROLL

No team has gone through the playoffs undefeated since the NBA began (as the Basketball Association of America) in 1946. In fact, only the 1981-82 Lakers went into the NBA Finals without a playoff loss. Here's a look at the teams with the best single-season playoff records:

Team Year W L

Philadelphia 1982-83 12 1 .923

San Antonio 1999-00 15 2 .882

Chicago 1990-91 15 2 .882

Detroit 1988-89 15 2 .882

Lakers1981-82 12 2 .857

Milwaukee 1970-71 12 2 .857

Chicago 1995-96 15 3 .833

Lakers 1986-87 15 3 .833

Boston 1985-86 15 3 .833

Minneapolis 1949-50 10 2 .833

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Box: ON A ROLL (see text)