Holiday posting

Fisher remembers the Lakers' 16-1 record to start the 2001-02 season. He also remembers how they could not maintain their early-season excellence, stumbling now and then en route to a good but hardly great 58-24 record.

But what Fisher recalls most of all when he thinks back to that season was how the Lakers completed it by winning their third consecutive NBA championship. Nothing else really matters where the 2001-02 season is concerned.

So, when Fisher answers a question asking him to compare the Lakers' 12-1 start this season with their 16-1 start in 2001-02, the thing he stresses is that the 2008-09 team has accomplished nothing special so far.

"As quickly as you can win 12 out of 13 or be 16-1, you go through a stretch where things get away from you," he said earlier this week. "It seems like things snowball from there and all the bad stuff comes out from under the rug.

"What I do remember most from that (2001-02) team was that we completed the end mission, which was to win a title. No matter how you start, it's how you finish that matters."

So, forgive the Lakers if they're not bouncing off the walls with joy and making plans for a downtown victory parade next June. There is still plenty of work to be done, plenty of improvement to be made.

"We all get the fact that we didn't win the championship last season," Fisher said. "So, we don't really have to pull each other back too far to get into the proper mind-set again. There are some times at halftime or during a timeout that we have to get composed again.

"But in terms of getting too excited about this good start or thinking we've won the championship in November, we all remember getting our butts kicked (by the Boston Celtics) in the Finals in June."

In fact, losing to the Celtics by 39 points in the decisive Game 6 has been the Lakers' version of "Remember the Alamo," a rousing rallying cry for this season.

"I think you've been in this business long enough to know there is no such thing as being satisfied," Fisher told a reporter. "You play a great game, you want to play a great game the next night. You win five in a row, you want to win six in a row. You win a championship, you want to win another championship.

"That's just part of being in this business. There is no such thing as a perfect game, but you always strive to be as good as you can be and as close to perfection as possible. We felt like we left a lot on the table last year. So, if there is such a thing as perfection we want to be as close to it as possible."