NO BETTER 5-ON-5; DESPITE LOSS, HARRIS' JUDGMENT IS SOUND.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

If you wake up to a bad-hair day, you don't willy-nilly shave your head. If you miss a connection on your outbound flight, you don't up and ditch your vacation. You don't throw out the sneaker with the broken lace.

And so it was coach Del Harris stuck steadfastly with what had gotten his Lakers a share of the Pacific Division title, a payoff in Portland and four straight victories over Seattle. It's what any cerebral sort would do, so Harris wasn't at all surprised that the so-called experts on sports talk radio just didn't understand.

It's unlikely cooler heads will prevail on the airwaves today, in the wake of a 109-98 loss to Utah on Friday in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals that leaves the Lakers on the brink of elimination in the best-of-seven series. That the Jazz is simply be a superior team is as good an explanation as any for the 3-0 crater the Lakers now have to try to climb out of.

History suggests they might as well be scaling Mt. Everest in their high tops, as no NBA team ever has come back to win a playoff series after losing the first three games. Maybe it was just because of how far they've fallen, but the Lakers' words afterward sounded awfully hollow.

``Maybe (Utah is) the better team,'' said reserve swingman Kobe Bryant. ``We're not really going to accept it until they beat us in a fourth game.''

Hard as it is to accept, the time has come to acknowledge the Lakers have neither the commitment to defense nor the constitution to match Utah. You can be sure some will say today they don't have the coach, either, though you have to wonder what possible card Harris could have pulled out of his sleeve to trump the Jazz' heart and smarts - never mind its bench, which outscored the Lakers' reserves 46-22.

It says here Harris was right to stick with starters Derek Fisher, Eddie Jones, Rick Fox, Robert Horry and Shaquille O'Neal.

To trade in Fisher at point guard for Nick Van Exel would have made as much sense as buying a new car because your old one was running fine. Consider: in the first two games against the Jazz, the Lakers' starting five, when playing together, outscored Utah 45-40.

Function followed form on Friday as the Lakers, with Fisher at the helm, scored nine of the game's first 11 points.

They let their defense be their guide, with Fisher and Eddie Jones buzzing around Utah point guard John Stockton and giving him a taste of what he has been force-feeding them. It started in the seventh second when Jones stole the ball from Stockton and tipped in his own miss at the other end. By the time the game was 3 minutes old, Stockton had an unheard-of three turnovers, one foul and zero points.

When Harris at length looked to his bench, summoning Van Exel and Corie Blount, the Lakers were ahead 11-9.

When the Jazz proceeded to rub out the Lakers' lead, you could hear the Friday night point guards in the sellout Forum crowd thinking aloud, where art thou, Kobe? But it says here Harris was wise to bring in Van Exel and Blount before the league's most hyped sixth man.

Again, it helps to be armed with the facts: In the first two games Van Exel, Blount, Jones, Fox and O'Neal scored 16 points as a unit while holding the Jazz to 10.

Of course, it's also true that the Lakers have done a lousy job of defending the Jazz's perimeter shooting. It didn't seem to matter who Harris put on the floor; the Jazz scored at will from the outside.

The die was cast in the first game and it hardened in the closing minutes of the first quarter when Karl Malone, Jeff Hornacek, Bryon Russell and Hornacek (again) made four consecutive baskets from 17 feet and beyond to wrest the lead from the Lakers, who suddenly looked leaden.

They didn't really retrieve the bounce in their step until late in the third quarter when they briefly regained the lead twice, at 62-61 and 64-63. But every time they tried to make a game of it, some Utah player stepped up and dropped a bomb on them.

When the Lakers pulled to within 87-85 with a little over six minutes left, there was Shandon Anderson, answering with a 17-footer. The last time the Lakers got as close as four, Horry tried a 3-pointer that rimmed out and at the other end of the floor Russell made good on a strike from 26 feet.

In the end it didn't matter who Harris put on the floor because like beaten soldiers, the Lakers were in full retreat. Afterward, defeat registered on their faces.

``They're a solid team,'' Blount said. ``They do their stuff well. We try to adjust and they ram it down our throats.''

When you were on top of the world as recently as last week, it's a little hard to swallow.

``Everybody's a little down, everybody's a little upset and we should be,'' Bryant said. ``We've just got to keep fighting.''

What seemed unfathomable seven days ago now is crystal clear: The Lakers are fighting a losing battle against a team eminently capable of winning the war.

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Photo

PHOTO Lakers coach Del Harris did the right thing by staying with his starting lineup, although he doesn't appear to like this matchup between Nick Van Exel and Utah's Howard Eisley.

David Sprague/Daily News