AFTER MISSING THEIR CHANCE IN GAME 5 TO SECURE THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP, THE LAKERS AND THEIR FANS ARE . . .

It has been a long time--too long--since Los Angeles mattered to the professional sports world.

After feasting in the 1980s, this city had to settle for crumbs in the 1990s. A decade slipped away, and it took the turn of a century to turn things around.

Now a town that lives for buzz is generating plenty of its own.

A new welterweight champion was crowned at Staples Center on Saturday, when Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya furiously traded punches. The anointing of a new basketball champion will take place this week, when the Lakers and Indiana Pacers finish the NBA finals.

L.A. has come back like Carlos Santana, who had a pretty memorable night himself at Staples Center this year when he won eight Grammy awards for his “Supernatural” album.

Mosley and De La Hoya would probably put on a good show even if they squared off in a Nebraska cornfield.

But the fact they put on that scintillating matchup at Staples Center can only help the venue attract big fights in the future.

And it came off without the incidents that have marred fights in Las Vegas and New York in recent years.

No one came flying into the ring, no one was bopped in the head with a cellular phone, no one heard gunshots.

“That was the most organized fight that I’ve ever seen,” said Laker point guard Derek Fisher, who watched the bout from Jerry Buss’ luxury suite. “I was impressed with how short and clean everything was. There weren’t a lot of fights in the stands and a lot of extra things going on.”

All of that, plus the 20,000 fans who packed the building, bodes well for the arena as a boxing site.

Whether the finals return to L.A. is up to the Lakers.

As odd as it might sound, they have more upside than the three other teams that made it to the conference finals this year. The Lakers had the best regular-season record and stand on the brink of a championship with a roster that isn’t tailored to the coaching staff’s desires. The type of players the team could use (a couple of shooters, a defensive-oriented rebounding forward) are not too difficult to find. The two key components, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, are only 28 and 21, respectively.

We could have a return to the days when you could expect the Lakers to play in June, and the rest was a matter of determining their opponent.

It has been nine years since Michael Jordan won his first championship on the Great Western Forum hardwood, clutched the trophy in the locker room, then left town and took all of the excitement with him.

It’s back now. You can see it in all of the Laker jerseys around town. You can hear it in the Laker talk on every radio station.

It’s reaching surprising levels.

While fans in Indianapolis drove around with Pacer flags hanging on their car windows, the only things Los Angeles folks have been known to put on their cars are those little clown heads from Jack In the Box stuck on top of radio antennas.

Someone in Indiana asked Fisher if he expected Laker fans to have flags.

“I said, ‘Man, we don’t do that stuff in L.A.’ ” Fisher said.

“But, I promise, yesterday I saw about 12 cars riding down the street with the Laker flags on their car. So the excitement is there.”

It all was taken for granted in the ‘80s.

The Lakers won five championships and reached the NBA finals three other times, the Dodgers won the World Series twice and the Raiders won the Super Bowl in 1984.

In addition, there were those glorious two weeks in 1984 when L.A. played host to the world for the Olympic Games.

Then came the ‘90s, when the curtains closed on Showtime, the football teams went elsewhere and the Dodgers went to Fox. Los Angeles ceased to be a regular stop for the national sports media.

Wayne Gretzky led the Kings to the Stanley Cup finals in 1993. The MLS Galaxy and the WNBA Sparks made their own trips to the finals, but came up short, the futility streak grew longer. No local pro team has won a championship since the Dodgers in October 1988, and no team has done it at home since the Lakers in June of that year.

One more victory by the Lakers and those historical references can finally be discarded. “Beat L.A.” can become a wish, not a regularity.

Los Angeles is long past the stage of having to prove itself or project an image to the rest of the world through major sporting events.

People already know everything the city has to offer. For anyone who doesn’t, one blimp shot of a sunny New Year’s Day during the Rose Bowl ought to do the trick.

These sports moments are for those who already live here. Nothing can bring the sprawled masses of various races together and get them talking about the same thing like a big fight or a playoff run by the Lakers or Dodgers.

So this isn’t a matter of validation as much as it is a chance for celebration.

Los Angeles has always known how to party. It’s ready for another reason.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com