The crowd at Game 3 in Staples Center was dead.

Lakers fans aren’t known for being loud or demonstrative, but that game was embarrassing for the franchise and the city. The people in the stands were just limp. Sitting with their hands in their laps. They hardly made a peep until the fourth quarter.

Clearly, something had changed about the Lakers crowd, and this may be it:

Regular season-ticket holders are cashing in by reselling their tickets.

This came from a Lakers fan, prior to Game 4.

“My sister has season tickets to the Lakers and sold tonight’s tickets for $1,300 apiece. Face value is $215 each. She is selling Game 5 for $2,400 each. You can do a blog item on how Lakers season tickets are better than holding stock on Wall Street at this time.”

Well, here is that blog item.

And perhaps we have an explanation for why the Staples crowd was inert on Tuesday. These are bandwagon fans, people with money but little passion for the team, who are here to see and be seen. Not to make noise.

At least, a much bigger chunk of them are, during the regular season. Including my source’s sister, who is salving the wounds of not seeing Games 4 or 5, in person, by depositing that $7,600 into her checking account.

And that’s $6,740 in profit, or about 880 percent gain on her initial investment of $860.

Not even Microsoft does that.