A SINKING FEELING

Coach Del Harris stood at the edge Saturday, looked to the future, and saw a glimmer of hope. Which, truth be told, is about all his Lakers have left in their 1997-98 season. That, and to finalize vacation plans.

“Someday,” Harris said, “a team is going to come back from 0-3 in the NBA. What we have to be telling ourselves is, ‘Why not us? Why not now?’ ”

Because Camelot this isn’t.

Because confidence in a locker room is one thing, but the greatest comeback in the 51-year history of the NBA is another.

Because the Utah Jazz is a better team.

But this much better? The Lakers, once upon a time thinking about reaching the championship series, instead today arrive at the Great Western Forum for Game 4 of the Western Conference finals trying to avoid their first playoff sweep since the Pistons defeated a beat-up team nine years ago, and to avoid the fallout.

Their desire to have the accomplishments of the previous 6 1/2 months remain at the forefront would, at the very least, be coupled with an embarrassing exit, four consecutive losses that included heartless efforts and poor fourth-quarter execution.

The real legacy could be much more harsh should they lose again today to a Jazz club that only needs to make official its deserved standing as best in the West for the second year in a row.

From 61 wins despite significant injuries to two starters, from an 11-0 start that set a franchise record, from four all-stars in the largest single-team contingent in 15 years, from an impressive first round against the Portland Trail Blazers and a very impressive second round against the Seattle SuperSonics to being unable to win a game when it counted against a team they took three of four from during the regular season.

Win a game? How about win a quarter? The Lakers have done that twice in 12 opportunities, tied in two others.

“Nobody wants to get the broom out,” Harris said. “There’s motivation. There’s motivation to win the game, No. 1. There’s motivation to be the first team to ever come from 0-3. And certainly the negative motivation to avoid getting the whitewash.

“It doesn’t take away anything that you do. It is a mark on that particular moment, but it doesn’t mean that in the record books then they’re gonna say, ‘Well, they didn’t finish strong, so we’re actually going to change the record books to where they only got 47 wins.’ You don’t do that.

“It’s what it is. It doesn’t add or take away anything else. But, anyway, we don’t think that’s going to happen. I feel confident that our guys will come back and win this game Sunday and any talk about a sweep at that point will become moot.”

Said Rick Fox: “Honestly, I think we’re so concerned with finding a way to win that gaining a win and losing the next game would feel just as bad. For me at least.

“Either way, we wouldn’t have accomplished anything. It’d just be a more embarrassing way of going down. But I don’t think we’re thinking about that right now.”

Embarrassing. But enough to overshadow what has come before?

“Not really,” Nick Van Exel said. “If you lose a series, you’re just going to lose a series. If you lose by one point, you lose a game. Being swept or losing 4-3, there’s not much of a difference. You just lose vacation time.”

Enough to feel as though going one step further than a year ago, from the conference semifinals to the conference finals, was really going forward?

“I don’t think so,” Derek Fisher said. “Four-zero, 4-1, 4-2, 4-3--you still went home. It just happened a little faster. If you lose the series four games to two, you don’t get a prize or you don’t get a medal for that. You never want to get swept, but I don’t think it makes you feel any worse than if we win a game and then we get beat, 4-1.”

Enough to have what was a good run be remembered for the stumble?

“Not really,” Kobe Bryant said. “We did a lot of positive things this season. Game 4 is going to be a game where we’re just going to have to come out and just play. We’re just going to have to play hard, we’re just going to have to let it all hang out.

“It would hurt if we got swept, definitely. We’d definitely be upset. We’re upset now. Our backs are against the wall. We’re just looking at it as an opportunity more than anything.”

An opportunity to make history by becoming the first team to ever win after being down 0-3. An opportunity, more immediately, to not get swept.