LOOKING FOR A WAY OUT OF TAILSPIN.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Of all the body parts to betray the Lakers lately, the ones in which Phil Jackson wanted to see the most improvement as the team came out of the All-Star break weren't the ankles, knees or shoulders but the eyes.

That was a remarkable statement the coach made after the previous game, using an outrageous four-letter epithet, singeing players' ears with sports' Q-word.

And it might bear repeating now that the Lakers have continued their February fold by falling to the Portland Trail Blazers 112-108 at Staples Center on Wednesday night, their sixth loss in a row and 12th in 16 games, as Jackson fumed on the sideline.

"I think that I saw players that had quit in their eyes tonight, and that bothered me," Jackson had said to reporters after Thursday's loss to Cleveland.

Saying a group of professional athletes looked as if they were quitting is pretty strong. I went through the Daily News' computer archives and found no example of Jackson saying anything like it since he arrived here in 1999. I asked him if he'd ever, with any of his teams, been moved to use words like those before.

"I don't think I've ever had to," Jackson said.

When Jackson returned to the Lakers post-Shaquille O'Neal, and people wondered if the coach of nine NBA champions could put up with a less- than-title- caliber team, it's a month like this they were referring to.

In a Staples Center hallway before tip-off Wednesday, Jackson searched his memory for comparisons.

"There was one group I had in Chicago (the Bulls) in '94 that had a season that was a roller-coaster -- we had a two-win, two-loss, three-win, two-loss type of season -- and we felt frustrated because we couldn't gain momentum," Jackson said.

But this is different.

"This (Lakers) team has had momentum," Jackson said. "And has lost it in an ungainly fashion."

There were the back-to-back overtime losses to Charlotte and San Antonio to send the Lakers stumbling into a marathon eastern trip, then the 3-5 trip, then two home losses. Everybody talked about how the Lakers had to beat Portland to save Jackson from his first six-game losing streak as an NBA coach. Overlooked was that the 4-11 stretch already marked Jackson's worst 15-game stretch.

Another memory search: With the 1980-81 New Jersey Nets, Jackson endured a 14-game losing streak, but he was only a first-year assistant coach then.

"That's a month of losing, and I know how unbearable that was for Bob MacKinnon, the (head) coach," Jackson said.

When he worries about the quit in those purple-and-gold eyes, his concern is that the close losses will pile up and bury his mostly young team.

"They need one pivotal thing," Jackson said, "kind of a moment that brings some kind of focus to them, that is a special moment where they play for each other and with each other."

Whilegeneral manager Mitch Kupchak works out the slim possibilities for a major trade before today's deadline, and the players hope the five-day break revived their shooting legs, the coach has been stuck in the middle of his worst month in a suit and tie.

heymodesti(AT_SIGN)aol.com

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