RUDE AWAKENING HEAVILY FAVORED LAKERS STUMBLE IN GAME 1.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

Wake up, boys, there's this important little basketball series to play.

A series that the Pistons were very ready for Sunday night. They brought the defensive intensity. They brought the urgency. They acted like they understood they were playing for an NBA title.

The Lakers acted like they were fighting yawns. Like they'd just awakened from a long nap, or at least six days off.

And now they are in instant trouble. Just like these guys. Not end-of-the-world trouble, not on-the-brink trouble.

But Sunday's 87-75 loss to the Pistons in the opener of the 2004 NBA Finals leaves them in a precarious situation. They cannot afford to lose Tuesday's Game 2 and fall 0-2 in the best-of-seven series as it heads to Detroit for three games.

``We've got to act like we want it,'' said Shaquille O'Neal.

Yeah, that would help every time. Act like this is the series you've been waiting for all season, and not just another game. Act very different from your opening performance.

The Lakers were infected by the Pistons' disease Sunday. They allowed the Pistons to dictate the pace, impose their will, play their style of basketball.

Naturally, it made for an incredibly dull game, a game dominated by defense, aided by missed open looks and little fast-break action.

The Lakers and their sellout, celebrity-filled crowd were off from the first minute. It was so flat, so lifeless, it felt like game 67 of the regular season, not the opener of the NBA Finals.

``They were sitting here waiting at home,'' said Pistons coach Larry Brown. ``I thought we had time to prepare. We're coming off a real tough series, and I think mentally, we were into this game.

``I thought it would take them a little bit to get into it.''

Indeed, the opener felt reminiscent of Brown's Sixers team that upset the Lakers in the opener of the 2001 series after they'd been off for 11 days. That Lakers team then won the next four games.

Lakers also lost the Finals opener at home to the Pistons in '88, and came back to win it in seven games.

So it's not end-of-the-world scary, but it had better serve as a serious wake-up call. The Pistons can grind out every game like this, can put themselves into position to win if the Lakers do not come ready to play their best.

``I don't know if we can play better,'' Brown said.

Listen, they can and will play better. So the Lakers better step it up, and quickly.

Sunday, they had no bench. Got zero from their reserves. No Derek Fisher or Kareem Rush magic. Their entire bench scored one field goal and contributed four points.

Their two new superstars could never get off the ground. Karl Malone was 2-of-9 from the field in 44 minutes. Gary Payton, in early foul trouble, was 1-of-4 from the floor.

They were virtual nonfactors, all while their counterparts - Rasheed Wallace and Chauncey Billups - came up big.

Malone, as is his way in these Lakers-like stinkers, tried to take the blame.

``I'm very disappointed in me because I didn't help the guys out at all,'' Malone said. ``That's unacceptable as a professional athlete.''

It was fairly a team-wide problem, though, and hardly restricted to the play of Malone. The Lakers just looked flat. As if, in the back of their minds, they believed they could pull the game at when they willed it.

Yet, after leading by one at the half, it was the Pistons who came out and jumped out to an 8-point lead. It was the Pistons who scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter, building a 13-point lead the Lakers could never overcome.

``We didn't play with enough energy and quickness,'' Fisher said. ``They outplayed us tonight.''

And so for the first time in this postseason, the Lakers lost at home. Fell to 1-9 at Staples. Left all talk about a sweep as just so much silliness. Left them in very early trouble.

``It puts a lot of pressure on us for the next game,'' Shaq said. ``This is the type of team that comes out and plays aggressive defense.

``They just wanted it a little bit more than we wanted it tonight. We just came out a little too loose, too lackadaisical.''

How does that happen? How does a team come out in the home opener of the Finals, in the series they've battled and scraped and survived a very long season for, without obvious energy?

The Lakers best wake up quickly. If they get lulled into another effort like Sunday's, very real trouble awaits.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Shaquille O'Neal, who scored a game-high 34 points, gets fouled in the second period of Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Sunday.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(2) Players pause for a moment of silence for President Ronald Reagan before the game.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer