Lakers Look to Seattle for Lost Motivation : Pro basketball: As playoffs begin, they’ll try to pull themselves out of late-season slump.

“Anybody know a good priest?” Del Harris shouted the other day at practice. “We might need some last rites!”

Maybe it was just a particularly bad stretch for the Lakers that sent their coach into a tirade. Or maybe, after 48 victories and the ninth-best record in the NBA, it was the truth.

The answers, or at least a strong indication, will start to come tonight at the Tacoma Dome as the Lakers begin their best-of-five first-round playoff series against the Seattle SuperSonics, the second-place team from the Pacific Division.

That Harris included the “might” proves he knows this team, which has shown often during the last six months how it can be horizontal on the canvas and deep into a 10-count and still rise. Never was that more evident than in Tacoma on Feb. 20, when the Lakers, without, Cedric Ceballos and Eddie Jones, won, 108-105, as Nick Van Exel scored a career-high 40 points.

Now to do it after seven losses in the final eight games of the regular season, some sluggish practices at mini-camp in Palm Desert and against an opponent very motivated by 1994 playoff failures.

Once more for posterity?

Not so fast.

“It’s not back yet, that’s all I can tell you,” Harris said Tuesday night after the final two-a-day practice. “The best I can come up with is where we failed. Yes, we had a tougher schedule. Yes, we played better teams. I know that. But that’s not going to help us get better. Using those as reasons is unproductive.

“I really think that somehow I’ve got to motivate them to energize that defense, take chances again. We’ve been trying. The coaches have been working trying to get the guys better on their rotations, better on their ball pressure, better on keeping the ball out of the middle, better on helping each other, better on talking. If we can do those things, then we’ve got a chance. But if we don’t, then it’s going to be awful tough.

“That’s what it all gets down to. Like I say, I’ll take the blame for adjusting backward, but I did it because that’s what I thought we had to do to win games (during the run of injuries), and that proved to be correct. But unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get a revival of that which made us what we were. It’s up to me to do it. Somehow, I’ve got to get it done.”

The players have responsibilities of their own. The Lakers must continue to handle the SuperSonics’ vaunted trapping and switching defenses that, against most teams, cause turnovers, misery and easy transition baskets. The big men must again use their advantage in athleticism and depth to defend inside--L.A. averaged 6.87 blocks overall and 8.2 in the five meetings with Seattle.

Along these lines, two matchups stand out as the most critical:

--Elden Campbell vs. Shawn Kemp at power forward.

No, this is not the real sign that the Lakers are doomed. Campbell played two of his most memorable games of 1994-95 against the SuperSonics: 27 points and five blocks while holding Kemp to four rebounds on Dec. 29, and 28 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks while emerging as the go-to guy to score six of his team’s final points Jan. 28 in a 96-95 victory.

“In three of the five games,” Seattle Coach George Karl said, “he’s been a force on the low blocks we have not handled very well.”

--Van Exel vs. Gary Payton at point guard.

Struggle with the SuperSonic defense that can make a point guard claustrophobic and you’re a goner. But Van Exel, in work especially impressive for a second-year player against one of the league’s best backcourt defenders, has more than held his own: He averaged 2.8 turnovers during the regular season compared to only 1.8 against Seattle, shot 42% overall and 49.3% versus Payton & Co. and bumped his scoring from 16.9 to 21.2, all with the same playing time.

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Laker Notes

Seattle Coach George Karl guaranteed victory. Or at least he did in February, when he went on his weekly radio show and said the SuperSonics, having just lost to the Lakers without Cedric Ceballos and Eddie Jones, would win if the teams met in the playoffs. This week, though, he backed off. “It was stupid, but what’s the difference now,” Karl said. “I got tired of people talking on the radio talk shows about the Lakers. I’m not guaranteeing it now.” . . . The Lakers won the season series, 4-1, but both sides agree that means nothing now. Proof of that is New Jersey beating New York four of five times last season, only to be eliminated, 3-1, in the first round of the playoffs.