By DERON SNYDER
The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press

The alarm clock has rung, waking the Los Angeles Lakers from their early-season slumber. It's time to rise. Time for the playoffs, followed of late by titles, parades and rings.

They're not the NBA's most entertaining team (Dallas) or most exciting (New Jersey). They're not the deepest team (Sacramento) or most fundamentally sound (San Antonio). They're not the most physical team (Indiana) or most balanced (Portland, though definitely not MENTALLY-balanced).

The Lakers are simply the league's winningest team when winning counts most. Which is now, not months ago when they languished at 11-19.

"We know how to win in hostile environments, we know how to win in clutch situations," said Kobe Bryant, prior to Los Angeles' 117-98 rout Sunday in the opener at Minnesota. "The playoffs bring up a different atmosphere."

You like some other team to win the title and end Shaquille O'Neal's three-year reign? Be my guest. There are plenty of pretenders to choose from (as long as you focus solely on the Western Conference).

The Spurs have the defending MVP in Tim Duncan and homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. And they were 4-0 against the Lakers this season. The Kings are still sore about the Lakers' 27 fourth-quarter free throw attempts in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals last year. They have homecourt and split their four regular-season games against Los Angeles.

Dallas owned the NBA's best record for most of the season, is the league's highest scoring team and yielded fewer points per game than the Lakers (95.2 to 98.0). The Mavericks have homecourt and were ... never mind (1-3 against the Lakers).

Minnesota isn't a contender but it has to win a first-round playoff series sooner or later (0-6 all-time). The T-wolves made a spirited second-half run Sunday and closed to within four points before falling behind for good. They just lost their homecourt advantage but they split four regular-season games against the Lakers.

You can have your choice of Western teams and I'll throw in the bucket of chum the Eastern Conference offers up. I'll take Kobe and Shaq and whoever else shows up in purple and gold.

The Lakers' Other Players - whose main job is to keep teams from triple- and quadruple-teaming Bryant and O'Neil - have done extremely well lately. Los Angeles hit more than half its three-pointers in the five games prior to Sunday's opener. Now Los Angeles has 30 wins in its last 39 games, an indication that the Lakers flipped the proverbial switch a tad early.

Forward Robert Horry said the team's energy level reached just 50 or 60 percent much of the regular season. We can imagine the difficulty in getting up for midweek back-to-backs at Denver and Golden State. No such problem with best-of-seven postseason series.

"With the playoffs, it's going to push our adrenaline level to 100," Horry said.

Forget a push. A tap on the shoulder and a whisper - "playoffs" - is all that's required to get Bryant's and O'Neal's attention. They combined to score 71 points against Minnesota and made the prospect of 16 consecutive Lakers victories appear quite possible.

Consecutive or not, look for the Lakers to win 15 more playoff games... en route to titles, a parade and rings.