BAD GRADE ON UPGRADE; `IMPROVED' LAKERS FRUSTRATED AGAIN BY JAZZ : UTAH 106, LAKERS 93.

Byline: Howard Beck Daily News Staff Writer

Scramble the roster, add a 3-point-shooting ace, a dominant rebounder and, hey, toss in a rookie point guard for good measure. They tried it all, but no number of additions and subtractions could help the Lakers solve the equation that caused them to fail last May's finals exam.

Same Utah Jazz, same result Tuesday night at the Forum. Another failing grade for the Lakers.

Even with Glen Rice, Dennis Rodman and recently activated rookie Tyronn Lue sharing the floor for the new-look Lakers, the old-look, old-legs Jazz stuck it to them again in a 106-93 victory before a charged but disappointed sellout crowd.

Ironically, the Lakers had beaten the Jazz at the Delta Center just last month, three days before they traded Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell to Charlotte for Rice and J.R. Reid in a move to bolster their odds against the likes of the Jazz.

So much for upgrades.

Despite hanging with the Jazz for three quarters, the Lakers had a familiar collapse down the stretch, as Shandon Anderson's 12 points in the final 9:47 turned a Lakers lead into another exasperating defeat.

Rodman couldn't explain it. Rice refused to even comment for fear he might say the wrong thing. Everyone else had filed quickly out of the locker room, avoiding the questions and heading straight for the team charter to Sacramento.

That left Shaquille O'Neal to sum up the latest in a too-long series of disappointments.

``With a team like that, you gotta play defense all the time. We only played for three quarters,'' said O'Neal, who led the Lakers with 24 points.

Well, they played defense. It just didn't look much like what the coaching staff had in mind.

``We didn't execute our game plan,'' coach Kurt Rambis said. ``They started falling asleep, coming up with their own system of how to play defense, instead of sticking to what we had in mind.''

So an 80-76 Lakers lead with 9:58 to go quickly vanished in a flurry of Anderson layups. John Stockton and Karl Malone did the rest, the latter scoring a game-high 30 points on 12-for-12 shooting.

But it was Anderson's explosion, first against Kobe Bryant and then Rick Fox, that hurt most. Bryant was lifted in favor of Fox midway through the quarter, though Rambis declined to say if that was a reflection on his play. O'Neal seemed to hint at it.

``The school that I grew up in, if somebody ain't doing their job, you take them out of the game,'' O'Neal said. ``Immediately.''

``We gotta stick with the team, rather than try to do stuff on our own,'' he added.

There were offensive lapses as well, as the Lakers shot a dismal 41 percent, including a 3-for-10 night from Rice and a 6-for-14 performance from Bryant. The only bright spots were Lue, scoring 12 points and handing out six assists in 23 minutes, and a 19-point effort off the bench from Fox.

After backup point guard Derek Fisher left the game with knee problems, Lue turned the first half into his personal coming-out party. The Lakers were down by seven points when the rookie out of Nebraska entered the game and he quickly led them on a 12-5 run to tie the score for the first time all night, at 34-all.

By the end of the half, with Lue aggressively pushing the ball upcourt, the Lakers had taken a 51-50 lead. And the Forum had itself a new fan favorite, dousing the rookie with hearty calls of ``Loooooo.'' Unfortunately for the Lakers, he couldn't sustain it in the second half, or save them from a defensive collapse.

``Ty did what we thought he was capable of doing,'' Rambis said. ``He was real productive in the first half, but he got a little hesitant in the second half.''

No one else had an excuse.

``How can we explain it? I can't really say,'' Rodman said. ``I have an answer, but I will keep it to myself. No need to pass judgment (on) our team tonight. . . . If you are going to play basketball, then play basketball. If you are not going to play, then you should sit down and don't play. Don't even bother coming.''

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PHOTO (Color) The Lakers' Dennis Rodman beats Karl Malone to a rebound in the first quarter. Later, he pulled Malone down and got a technical.

John McCoy/Daily News