IF YOU missed the Mets’ National League East division title elimination game last night, don’t sweat it. There will be another one in 10 days or so. If not then, it will be in another 10 days or so after that.

Painful as it is to admit, it doesn’t look as if the Mets are going anywhere but to the National League playoffs for a stay as short or

shorter than last October’s, which ended in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in, where else, Atlanta.

If you think that’s unfair, you obviously didn’t watch the last rendition of the Braves’ domination of the Mets, a 7-1 humiliation played before an announced crowd of 48,270 at Shea Stadium on the chilliest night of the season.

John Burkett just as easily could have been Greg Maddux the way he was setting the Mets down en route to his 10th win. Afterward, when the Braves had clinched the division, they shook hands on the field and went inside for a reserved champagne celebration.

Just as Paul Warfield acted as if he had been there before when he handed the football to the referee in the end zone, the Braves acted as if they had been there before. They

have been there, nine consecutive championship seasons, to be exact.

“The celebrations get better the farther you get,” said Braves right fielder Brian Jordan, who robbed Mike Piazza of a hit with a nice catch. “We’ve got work left to do. We set out to win the division. Now that we’ve done that, we want to finish with the best record and to do that we have to play good baseball.”

That’s Brian Jordan, professional to the bone, even with a bottle of Andre champagne in hand.

That’s the Braves, an underrated dynasty. If they finish with the National League’s best record, they will do so for the ninth consecutive season. Amazing.

The Braves never have lost a Division Series and there is no reason to believe they will do that this season.

The Mets?

Repeat the Mets’ “Ya Gotta Believe” 1,000 times and you’d still have a difficult time believing. Concoct a multitude of if-and-but scenarios that include the Braves getting bounced in the first round, rendering the hex meaningless, and it still requires a stretch of the imagination to picture raking leaves in the morning and watching the Mets in their first World Series since 1986 in the evening.

Three problems impede picturing the Mets making it to the World Series by avoiding the Braves. First, it would require the Mets to defeat their first-round opponent, likely the Giants. Second, it would require the Braves losing to their first-round opponent, probably the Cardinals. Third, the Mets would have to beat their second-round opponent, probably the Cardinals.

To expect that to happen is to expect three longshots to come in.

If he so chose, Braves manager Bobby Cox could leave center fielder Andruw Jones in St. Louis for the Division Series after the Braves depart for Atlanta for Game 3. Based on last night’s wide-ranging performance, Jones could catch flyballs standing in center field at Busch Stadium even if they were hit at Turner Field.

An outfielder’s defense seldom is a weapon worth ranking highly in a championship-caliber club’s arsenal, but Jones rewrites that thinking on a daily basis. Jones made made a diving catch to rob Piazza in the third inning and did the same to Robin Ventura in the fourth.

Naturally, since this was the Mets playing the Braves, it was another Jones, the one known in ballparks across America as Chipper and known in New York’s parks as Larry, who did his part to awaken the offense.

Chipper, the reigning National League MVP, helped dig the grave of another Mets loss by drilling a home run into the bleachers in left center.

And then there was John “Punk” Rocker, unfazed by a beer bottle thrown his way, working out of a jam he inherited in the eighth inning the way the Braves worked out of a jam all spring and early in the season, courtesy of Rocker’s asinine comments to a SportsIllustrated reporter last winter.

“All the veterans stuck together and did a great job of making it through the Rocker situation,” Jordan said. “And in the second half, Rocker did a great job, let it go, and came into his own.”

It’s been a steady climb to a clinching celebration for the Braves, a rocky road to an underdog postseason for the Mets.