A LOSS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

SACRAMENTO - The Lakers flew home late Monday night leading the NBA Western Conference finals, 1 game to 1.

On paper, it's tied. In reality, it's no contest.

Although they lost to the Sacramento Kings 96-90 at Arco Arena, the Lakers got what they needed, if not everything they wanted, by splitting the series' first two road games.

Although they were beaten, the Lakers made it close on an evening when Kobe Bryant wasn't himself because of an overnight bout with food poisoning and Shaquille O'Neal was limited by a game-long battle with the referees.

Although they wound up behind on the scoreboard, the Lakers might have come out ahead in their own heads - and just maybe in the Kings' as well.

The Kings held off a Lakers rally. Which gives them something in common with the San Antonio Spurs, who held off a Lakers rally in their Game 2 victory a couple of weeks ago. That was right before the Spurs took all of their newfound confidence and, three games in a row, caved in.

The Kings are going to say this was a psychological breakthrough for them.

``It lets us know,'' Kings star Chris Webber said immediately after the buzzer, ``that we're as good as we think we are.''

But did that look like a psychological breakthrough in the fourth quarter? Or an emotional breakdown waiting to happen?

The Lakers trailed by 15 points with less than seven minutes left in the game. And everybody in the arena could feel it coming. Lakers. Kings. Kings fans.

Robert Horry sank a bank shot, Rick Fox hit a turnaround jumper, O'Neal dunked. The Kings embarked aimlessly on six consecutive scoreless possessions. Suddenly the 15-point game was a single-digit game.

When Derek Fisher went up for a 3-point shot from straightaway with 4:15 on the clock, 17,317 of the world's noisiest basketball fans fell silent, inhaling as one while the ball spun toward the basket.

Only as Fisher's shot rolled off the rim and into the hands of a Sacramento rebounder did the crowd breathe out.

Still, it wasn't over.

Fox made two free throws after being fouled on a drive. The fans' cheers and chants began to sound more like pleas. A 3-pointer by the Kings' Mike Bibby restored their lead to 10 with less than three minutes to play.

Still, it wasn't over.

After Bryant's 3-pointer with 12.5 seconds left, the Lakers were within 93-90 and within one more Kings blank of rendering the best-of-seven series effectively over.

That the Kings held on, hitting just enough free throws, doesn't erase the impression this game left.

The Kings defeated the Lakers. They didn't exorcise them.

In their sleep Monday night, the Kings still were waiting for the Lakers to finish the comeback.

Sacramento, you can let out the last of that deep breath. But if your Kings couldn't pull away from the Lakers and make the margin stick on a night like this, they never will.

This will be remembered as the rare occasion in these playoffs when not everything Kobe Bryant threw up went in the basket.

Bryant's brief illness, said to be the result of a bad room-service cheeseburger-and-cheesecake dinner Sunday at the Lakers' downtown hotel, forced him to go through three bags of intravenous fluid before the game. An hour before tipoff, it wasn't clear he'd be able to play.

Apparently trying to pick his spots for aggressive offense, he made 9 of 21 shots and scored 22 points - only five in the fourth quarter, when he normally takes over.

Their bench stretched more than coach Phil Jackson prefers, the Lakers let the game's pace speed up uncomfortably in the third quarter and the game briefly got away.

Meanwhile, O'Neal had to miss 11 minutes, playing his second fewest of the playoffs, because he drew four fouls in the first three quarters. As a team, the Kings had 28 free throws, the Lakers only nine, going to the fourth.

``Anybody who knows basketball knows what happened tonight,'' O'Neal said not too cryptically, hardly cowed by this defeat in America's proudest cowtown.

The Lakers lost.

But as they walked off the court and toward Game 3 in Los Angeles on Friday, Bryant was clapping.

Why not? It's 1-1. Lakers.