DOWN AND OUT IN L.A.; `GRAYBEARD' JAZZ TEACH LAKERS A LESSON IN FOUR.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

The Lakers were able to watch their own funeral Sunday, and it was a real downer. There were no glowing testimonials about a 61-win regular season or a berth in the Western Conference finals, only glowering truths.

The Utah Jazz burst into the Lakers' home and fired a clean shot to the heart, its 96-92 win over Shaquille O'Neal and Co. at the Forum completing a precision sweep in the best-of-seven series.

It didn't matter that the dirge had been building to a crescendo since the Lakers' franchise-record 35-point loss to Utah in Game 1 in Salt Lake City eight days earlier. To a man, the Lakers seemed shocked and dismayed that they could be obliterated by a team they had believed to be ripe for the kill.

Reserve forward Corie Blount had been, well, blunt on the eve of the Lakers' first Western Conference finals appearance in seven years when he suggested the Lakers, flying high after posting four straight wins against the Seattle Supersonics in the second round, were capable of pulling off a sweep.

``I guess I didn't know what I was in store for,'' Blount glumly admitted.

None of the Lakers did. In retrospect, how could they have?

With nary a thirtysomething player on their roster, the Lakers were too young and gullible to see the Jazz - average age, 30.3 years - as anything but a bunch of graybeards. By the time they learned to respect their elders, it was too late.

Early in Sunday's game, Blount banged into Utah guard Jeff Hornacek so hard, Hornacek winced. Hornacek looked pretty creaky on his 34-year-old knees to begin with, so Blount figured that was the last he'd see of him under the boards. But the next time down the court, there Hornacek was, back for more punishment.

That's how the Jazz won the series, one battle at a time.

``We kept fighting and fighting,'' said Lakers point guard Nick Van Exel, ``but we just couldn't get over that hill.''

One of the few skirmishes the Lakers won all afternoon was when Utah's most obsessive fan, a guy the players refer to as ``Jazz Man,'' was escorted out of the Forum by security guards at the end of the third quarter after baiting the fans directly behind the Lakers' bench.

Meanwhile, back on the floor, Karl Malone, the player whose jersey ``Jazz Man'' proudly wore, was baiting the Lakers with impunity.

Malone and Jazz point guard John Stockton are the Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon of the NBA set. They are still quite the entertaining pair after 13 seasons together.

In that time they've learned a thing or two hundred about executing under pressure and weathering adversity. The Lakers were able to do neither, but then you can't teach intangibles any more than you can talent.

The Lakers will be wiser for having been humiliated at the hands of the wily Jazz. One disgusted court-side fan said he hopes the Lakers learned, above all else, that ``athletic ability and all the talent in the world aren't going to win anything.

``We think we can just show up,'' continued former Lakers great Magic Johnson, ``and that's not enough.''

Johnson's shot was right on the money. The Lakers have four All-Stars but no all-embracing mind-set. As was true throughout the series, individual players tried to do too much and wound up doing too little.

To wit: In a 3-minute, 13-second span stretching from the end of the first quarter to the beginning of the second, Kobe Bryant, 19, twice tried foolishly to drive to the basket. He was stripped of the ball both times and wound up on the bench for the rest of the quarter with the two turnovers, one foul and zero points to show for his three minutes' work.

Bryant would finish with six points, three turnovers and, tellingly, zero assists. It's little wonder his teammates stood around when he had the ball instead of cutting toward the basket; they knew better than to waste their precious energy.

Van Exel, a fellow reserve, is older, but he was no wiser. Time and again he brought the ball upcourt and immediately launched a 3-pointer instead of massaging the shot clock and moving the ball around for a higher-percentage shot. He missed five of the eight 3-point shots he tried, and the Jazz usually saw to it that the Lakers had no second chances. Malone alone pulled down 13 defensive rebounds Sunday.

Van Exel was all mixed up, shooting from the perimeter when he should have been passing the ball, and dishing off after penetrating deep into the paint when he would have been better off taking the shot.

The times he drove the lane, Van Exel said, ``I was basically trying to draw the defense to me. But they waited for me to make my move. They were real smart.''

The poor decision-making of Bryant and Van Exel went a long way toward explaining why the Lakers' bench was outscored in the four games by the Jazz reserves, 145-96 (29-22 on Sunday).

In the final 12 minutes of their season, the Lakers finally surged instead of retreating. They trailed by 10 points at the end of the third quarter but appeared poised to tie the game with 27.6 seconds left when Malone fouled O'Neal as the Lakers center made a short jumper.

But the referees waved off the basket, and O'Neal went to the foul line instead. He missed both free throws, an unfitting conclusion given that he averaged 36 points in the last three games.

All of the Lakers and coach Del Harris, too, railed about the officiating afterward, singling out the referees when, in truth, they had no one to blame but themselves.

You can say the Lakers were beaten by a better team, and you'd be right. But it's also true the Lakers were their own worst enemy, dwelling first on their glorious press clippings from the Seattle series and later on the officiating when all along they should have been focusing solely on staying alive.

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PHOTO (Color) Karl Malone of the Jazz holds up the ball while looking at the Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal after O'Neal was called for a flagrant foul.

Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press