LOS ANGELES – Believe. The Nets have used that little yet powerful word for several weeks now. They believe in themselves, always have, always will, even when their belief should have been stretched to the limit.

So why not believe in omens, too? The Diamondbacks did it. The Patriots did it. This has been the year of the underdog in other sports. And it might be the year to topple the Lakers.

“Obviously, they’re a great team,” observed Kerry Kittles, “[but] they’re not playing their best basketball of the season right now, they’re not playing their peak ball, [and] if there is any year to beat them, it’s this year.”

And now only one team can do it, although it is a team everyone doubts. After all, the Lakers are the two-time defending champs. But are they as invincible as the recent Laker teams?

“I still think they’re the best team in the league. They’ve proven it all season. They’re two-time defending champions and they’re back there again trying to three-peat,” Byron Scott said. “We know we have our work cut out for us.

“But we also know that the bar between them and the rest of the league is shrinking. We know that we’ve gotten better each and every playoff series and we’re very confident right now that we can play with them,” Scott insisted. “We’re not in awe of the Lakers, we know they’re a great team. We feel very confident we can go in there and we can win a game.”

And maybe the series, so stuff the cynics who doubted some other teams, too.

“If Carolina beats [Detroit], maybe we have a chance. It gives us a chance,” said a smiling Jason Kidd. “Other sports, you can look at different situations. The Diamondbacks, just the tradition of the Yankees, the history, the upstart Diamondbacks come in and shocked the Yankees. Nobody gave the Diamondbacks a chance. Maybe we can use that. But right now we have to go in and do what we have done all season and have fun.”

And there was that football team from New England that had no chance in the Super Bowl. But more than omens, more than faith, the Nets have concrete facts. The Lakers have shown a vulnerability. They went to seven games against Sacramento. Last year, they lost one postseason game.

“I learned that the Lakers are a beatable team [from the Sacramento series],” said center Todd MacCulloch, who has the swell task of matching up with Shaquille O’Neal. “The [series] went to a seventh game and [that] went to overtime. The Kings run a similar style offense to us, and some of that is going to be effective. We think we’re a pretty good defensive team and we’re going to try to make things hard on their whole team.”

As rookie Richard Jefferson said, “They’re the ones with everything to prove, we have nothing to lose, literally, nothing to lose.”