LAKERS NOTEBOOK: FISHER LETTER: RETURNED TO SENDER.

Byline: Howard Beck Daily News Staff Writer

A strongly worded letter from Lakers executive Jerry West in March helped refocus the Lakers and turn the season around. Sunday, the Lakers found another letter waiting for them, this time from their starting point guard.

With the Lakers down 3-0 in the Western Conference finals, second-year guard Derek Fisher thought about screaming his frustration at teammates. Instead, he scripted a two-page, handwritten letter to the team, coaches included, urging everyone to stick together.

He underlined for emphasis every reference to ``we'' and ``us.''

``At times during this season, we have played inconsistent. We allowed our opponent to play harder than us. . . . However, like good teams do, we didn't give in,'' Fisher wrote. ``. . . We continued to play well to start the playoffs, playing with heart, pride, youthful enthusiasm and emotion, as if there was no tomorrow.

``Since the conference finals have started, we have played inconsistent. We have allowed our opponent to play harder than us. We have allowed our opponent to come into our home and beat us. . . . Now is the time for us to do what we have done before. We must not give in.

``. . . We must stick together and believe in one another. We must persevere and play our best basketball. One play at a time, one stop at a time, one quarter at a time, one game a time. Because there is no tomorrow, only today.''

The Lakers took the words to heart, though they failed to match the sentiment on the court.

``I didn't know what would happen,'' Fisher said afterward. ``I didn't think, because I decided to write a letter, all of a sudden we'd start to play this magical type of basketball. But, like the letter said, there's no tomorrow.

``We walk out of this locker room, we have a meeting (Monday) and then the offseason begins. The guy who's been sitting next to you all year, you don't know if you'll ever see him again, whether it's a car accident or a plane crash or whatever the case may be.''

Ask not . . .: If the Lakers appeared to lack intensity on the home court, Jazz center Antoine Carr said the Forum crowd can blame itself.

``If your fans are all pumped up when you're at home, you have that sense of urgency, it just translates on the court,'' Carr said. ``It's kind of that laid-back attitude here. They need (fans) like Utah people.''

Case in point: On Sunday, the crowd was so docile that Forum technicians cranked up the volume on the house music in an apparent effort to make up for the lack of enthusiasm.

The crowd's loudest roar of the day came at the start of the fourth quarter, when security officers escorted ``Jazzman'' - Utah's rabid No. 1 fan - out of the building after a near altercation.