CHAMPIONS PUT FEAR OF CHOKE IN OPPONENTS.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

It begins in the head. It upsets the stomach. It attacks the heart with pangs of anxiety. Inevitably, it affects the extremities - turning hands sweaty, arms heavy and feet slow.

In patients recently under observation, its visible symptoms include clanked free throws, airballed jump shots, poor shoot-or-pass decisions, a failure to box out rebounders and an ill-timed slip by a crunch-time playmaker.

Fortunately, cases reported this spring have been confined to Portland and San Antonio, to opponents of the Lakers and to the fourth quarters of NBA playoff games.

You could call it Lakerphobia, though it's probably only a modern strain of a malady that once sickened opponents of the Chicago Bulls and, before that, the Boston Celtics.

``It's just that feeling that you can't do anything right,'' said the Lakers' Rick Fox, who knows the feeling, which every basketball player has suffered at one time or another.

The Portland Trail Blazers suffered in the final minutes of the loss that swept them out of this year's playoffs in the first round. Five points ahead with 39 seconds left in the game, they lost because veteran Scottie Pippen missed a free throw and then left the Lakers' Robert Horry open for a 3-point shot.

The San Antonio Spurs suffered in both of their losses at the Alamodome over the weekend. Up by a point with eight minutes to play on Friday night, they scored on only one of their next eight possessions. Up by 10 with seven minutes on the clock Sunday, they missed their last nine shots from the floor, let Kobe Bryant fly up the lane for a rebound basket and fouled up a last-gasp play when Terry Porter fell down with the ball.

In the San Antonio newspaper, a writer called Sunday's loss the ``Mother's Day Choke.''

``We've made mistakes throughout the series,'' the Spurs' Danny Ferry said after his team fell behind 3-1 in the best-of-seven series that could end tonight at Staples Center.

Mistakes.

Strange, isn't it, how they keep happening to Lakers opponents?

The tough part about playing the Lakers with the season on the line probably isn't that you're almost certain to get beaten by them. No, the tough part is that the Lakers are almost certain to make you beat yourself.

They're the golf-course agitators who make you so mad by reminding you of past defeats, you find yourself pushing one-foot putts that could shut them up. They're the tennis-court scramblers who get balls back so relentlessly, eventually you dump one into the net.

It probably started when the Lakers made up 15 points on the stone-cold Trail Blazers to win Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals, telling themselves and the rest of the league that Los Angeles is never dead.

Whether the Lakers are leading, tied or trailing in the fourth quarter, they believe they will come back.

Which might not matter, if their opponents didn't also believe the Lakers will come back.

``The worst thing that can happen is for a team to come back and beat you, especially on your home floor,'' the Lakers' Derek Fisher said. ``Naturally, you tend to tighten up a little bit.

``At the same time as it gives us confidence, they're thinking about it on the other side - 'We can't allow that to happen again.' It takes away your natural instincts to just go out and play the game, because you're thinking about what you don't want to happen.''

Funny: During the regular season, the Lakers regularly made last-place teams look like the San Antonio Spurs. In the playoffs, the Lakers regularly make the San Antonio Spurs look like a last-place team.

The vanquished drive away from the arena wondering how they blew it.

``You go back over every situation,'' Lakers coach Phil Jackson said of the sleepless nights that follow those woulda-shoulda-coulda losses that other teams keep absorbing. ``It's draining.''

Quietly, the Lakers relish this. Their opponents' intimidation is the ultimate tribute to their budding dynasty.

``We know that if we can just apply pressure, with all those people in the stands, they (opponents) will get a little nervous,'' Bryant said. ``Shots that they might have been able to knock down before aren't falling. You feel it and it only adds to your aggressiveness.''

``I've seen the look on (opponents') faces, like, 'Here they come,' '' Fox said. ``That's all we need.''

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As Tim Duncan (21) demonstrates, frustration comes easy to the Lakers' playoff opponents. ``That's all we need,'' Rick Fox (17) said.

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press