HERE'S TO L.A. TEAMS . . . AND THE CLIPPERS.

Byline: Kevin Modesti

Tuesday night's game at the Staples Center was the first ever between two NBA teams that share an arena.

Those teams are the Lakers . . . and the Clippers.

Of course, they aren't the only teams and basketball isn't the only sport to which Los Angeles' new arena plays host.

It's home to the hockey Kings as well as the Lakers . . . and the Clippers.

Next spring it will add to its sports-team roster.

The arena-football Avengers will join the Kings, the Lakers . . . and the Clippers.

Nor are sports the only activities for which the Staples Center was erected.

Already it has held a Bruce Springsteen concert, a Ricky Martin concert and a professional wrestling card in addition to the Kings, the Lakers . . . and the Clippers.

And by next summer, the building will be able to boast that it's more than an entertainment venue.

In August it will add the Democratic National Convention to the itinerary that includes the concerts, the wrestlers, the Avengers, the Kings, the Lakers . . . and the Clippers.

Look, I don't mean to imply the Clippers are third-class citizens in their own arena, but Tuesday night they weren't even the second most-discussed pro basketball team among the early arrivals at the Staples Center.

People were talking about the 1) the Lakers and 2) the Italian-league club, Olimpia Milano, in which the Lakers' Kobe Bryant just purchased a half-interest.

This was a weird occasion all around, stranger even than the 71 other times the Lakers and Clippers feigned a rivalry over the past 15 seasons, when the Lakers were tenants of the Forum and the Clippers were tenants of the Sports Arena.

It began when the Daily News' Steve Dilbeck glanced around the packed arena after the Star Spangled Banner and observed, ``The Lakers are so big in this town, they can sell out even when they're playing the Clippers.''

It continued when Lakers public-address announcer Lawrence Tanter welcomed fans to the game between ``the visitors from the Pacific Division of the Western Conference, the Clippers, and the home team, your Los Angeles Lakers!'' The visitors might as well have been from Charlotte.

The introduction of Clippers players brought practically no audible reaction from the crowd. They might as well have been from Buffalo.

``It's definitely going to feel like a road game,'' the Clippers' Keith Closs had predicted. ``Only guys on our team who are going to get any applause are Lamar Odom and Maurice Taylor. Everybody else, you're going to hear the crickets.''

This is officially a Lakers home game. The Clippers will ``host'' the Lakers for the first time Jan. 4. The difference is the court and basket standards (trimmed in purple and gold for the Lakers' home games, red and blue for the Clippers'), the team bench locations, the media seating charts and the ticket prices.

But no matter who's the home team, the fans root from Kings- and Lakers-gold seats and the Lakers dress in a more spacious locker room.

Also, the Clippers, who signed their six-year lease after the Kings and Lakers had committed to the new arena, receive a smaller cut of luxury-suite and Premier Seat revenue than those teams do.

When their move was announced in April 1998 - after the rejection of an invitation from the Anaheim Pond - there was this notion that sharing a home court with the Lakers would force Clippers management to shape up to avoid embarrassing comparisons.

The Staples Center was supposed to help the Clippers attract high-caliber free agents who'd never have considered playing in the run-down Sports Arena.

``No excuses,'' general manager Elgin Baylor said at the time.

Of course, the Clippers' new star this year is not a free agent but a rookie who had no choice in the matter, and management isn't meeting the contract demands of its own most important potential free agent, Taylor.

Looking for a bright light in the new arena, Closs points to the Clippers' home attendance, averaging 12,000 so far, up from less than 9,500 last season.

``People started tuning in our games in the preseason when the Lakers went on their losing streak,'' Closs said.

A reminder it's always about the Lakers.

Anyway, that's the feeling here at the Staples Center, where the Lakers, in more of the same in the new setting, won 95-68 Tuesday over . . . who were we talking about, again?