SIXERS SNAP LAKERS STREAK L.A.'S BID FOR PERFECT PLAYOFF ENDS.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

For the past two months, the basketball has been a basalt tablet in the Lakers' hands. They've carted it around like their own version of the Rosetta stone.

Such a priceless piece of history can grow quite heavy after a while. So maybe we shouldn't have been so surprised when, on Wednesday night in the first game of the NBA Finals, the Lakers lost their grip on it.

An unprecedented undefeated postseason slipped through their fingers so gradually, so inexorably, the 18,997 fans had to feel as though they were seeing the inevitable develop in slow motion.

Say this for the Lakers; they tried mightily to save their perfect playoff record from ruin. They nearly pulled it off despite bungling things badly in the second quarter. They came from 15 points down in the final 17 minutes of regulation to force a five-minute overtime period. In the end, though, they couldn't hold on and their piece of history broke into pieces on the Staples Center floor.

The 76ers, behind Allen Iverson's 48 points, snapped the Lakers' winning streak at 19 games, the last 11 of them in the playoffs, with a 107-101 victory.

So the key to cracking the unfathomable - a 15-0 run through the playoffs - remains beyond comprehension. So what.

The loss didn't cinch anything, except that these Shaqedelic, Kobelicious Lakers won't go down as one of the greatest NBA teams in history, a distinction forward Horace Grant believed was within the Lakers' reach if they ran the table.

The Lakers have plenty of time to pick up the pieces from Wednesday and put them back together. They've developed enough cohesion as a team to stick together and realize their original goal, which was to successfully defend their NBA title.

They can still do it as long as Kobe Bryant converts more than seven of 22 shots in Game 2 on Friday (and of course he can). And Derek Fisher finds a way to fight through the fatigue that is a given when you're guarding Iverson and makes the perimeter shots that were falling without fail for him in the Western Conference finals against San Antonio.

The Lakers can repeat as long as they play the way they did in the first eight minutes and not the way they did in the next 23. They lost a 21-9 lead almost as quickly as they had built it because they bungled the basketball badly. It's hard to hold on to the momentum when you can't hold on to the ball.

The Lakers committed four of their 19 turnovers in the final four minutes of the first quarter, giving Iverson just enough of an opening to orchestrate a 13-2 quarter-ending run that set the Lakers back on their heels.

On a night when Iverson put on a one-man show, it figures that the Lakers' sparkplug would be the player asked to play the quicksilver 76ers guard in practice. Tyronn Lue replaced Fisher midway through the third quarter and in five fabulous minutes doled out three assists, managed two steals and stayed on Iverson like a tattoo.

The Lakers were a two-prong outlet on this night, with all their energy coming from Lue and Shaquille O'Neal. The latter finished with 44 points, 20 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots.

O'Neal tried to carry the Lakers on his broad back but Iverson piggybacked his team across the finish line first.

The Lakers are like the Olympic runner in the 10,000 meters who is on world-record pace through the first 7,500. If they hold on to win the best-of-seven series, the victory will loom larger than the disappointment of failing to make history.

``We couldn't be afraid to try to go undefeated,'' Rick Fox said. ``In order to do something grand, we couldn't be afraid to fail.''

They lost a game Wednesday but they haven't failed. The way the Lakers came back from their double-digit deficit to force the overtime suggests they don't intend to.

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