Timberwolves Are on Thin Ice

Showing that the sun always comes up the next morning, and may even be visible here if the prevailing front moves through, it suddenly broke through Monday as townspeople snapped up all available tickets, preparing to back their gritty little guys against the vaunted power from the West.

Just to show where grit can get you, the Wild, a 3-year-old expansion franchise, then defeated the Colorado Avalanche to force a Game 7.

So much for our NHL update.

Unfortunately for the local NBA team, things were still looking dicey, after the Lakers beat the Timberwolves in the opener, on their own floor ... by 19 ... with Phil Jackson assuring everyone Shaquille O’Neal would be back for Game 2.

That’s tonight at 8:30, Central time, making it a tough sell in a town already skeptical of the Timberwolves, who are now in the playoffs, where they always lose.

Sure enough, 4,000 tickets remained unsold Monday. Not that the late start came as a surprise around here.

“This isn’t about us,” said a Timberwolf official, in what is becoming a team mantra. “This is about the Lakers.”

Since the schedule was mandated by TNT, which is more worried about the Los Angeles market than this one, this didn’t represent paranoia but God’s Own Truth.

Perhaps coincidentally, TNT was supposed to get a sit-down interview with Kevin Garnett but was told it would have to settle for five minutes, on the court, after the media session ... which Garnett then skipped.

Thirty minutes afterward, a group of reporters spotted Garnett in a Target Center hallway.

“Can we talk to you?” asked one.

“Talk about what?” replied Garnett.

So much for the mood of the team. Nor did anything else seem to be working out for the Timberwolves.

Since it’s obviously time for a daring move, Shaq or no Shaq, Coach Flip Saunders will try his little lineup with 6-foot-4 Anthony Peeler replacing 6-10 Joe Smith.

Of course, in one of those tricks that coaches like to spring on each other at the last moment, gaining the element of surprise which means ... nothing ... Saunders didn’t mention it during his 15 minutes of remarks Monday, instead going on and on about the virtues of the big lineup.

Unfortunately he neglected to swear his players to silence and Wally Szczerbiak informed the press -- and thereby the Lakers -- minutes later.

On the other hand, nothing in this off-day exercise -- in which everyone looks for clues about what’s to come by projecting what just happened ... and rarely happens again ... while everyone, uh, doesn’t tell the complete truth -- should suggest that the little Timberwolves won’t play their big hearts out tonight.

Uncommon resiliency is what got them here, as they showed in Game 1, when they cut a 20-point second-quarter deficit to four in the third.

Nor would anything be more typical of the Lakers than to go into their home run trot tonight and, perhaps, even Thursday at home, where they have their biggest letdowns.

Coach Phil Jackson, whose job it is to keep them ready, which is no easy task until this time of year, has warned his players to remain alert.

In a pleasant development for the Lakers, Jackson said they now seem to be soaking up everything he says -- “as opposed to the regular season, when I need a drumbeat to get their attention.”

Of course, for the Timberwolves, it would be better if they didn’t merely show up, but came out “geeked up,” in Garnett’s words, in the first quarter, rather than the third, which was why he was said to be smoldering.

Garnett, the super-competitor, keeps running into a wall at this time of year. Everyone then says the same thing -- he needs more help -- but now he’s only a year from free agency.

“Kevin’s the type of guy who wants the team to play hard and play with a lot of emotions out there on the court,” said Troy Hudson.

“Whenever you keep trying to overcome an obstacle and, year after year, there’s something standing in your way, it’s going to take a toll on you. But for him, we just have to continue to play hard and things will turn around.”

Unfortunately for the valiant Garnett, the thing standing in his way now wears purple and blocks out the sun.

In Game 1, the Timberwolves tried to help on O’Neal and Kobe Bryant and make everyone else prove they could hit shots. What ensued was a fearsome exhibition, reminiscent of the Laker sweep in the 2001 West finals, when every time the Spurs left a Laker uncovered, he dropped a three-pointer on them.

As Saunders noted, when he was asked where his players had left their enthusiasm, Bryant, Derek Fisher and Rick Fox hit five of their first six three-point tries. This had a discouraging effect on the Timberwolves, like having a piano dropped on them.

“I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night,” said Saunders. “As a coach, you look to see if what we did from a game-plan standpoint

“So someone says, ‘They can’t make those.’ You know, Kobe had 12 straight games over 40 [nine actually, but the legend grows]. He makes those shots....

“They are what they are. I can’t sit here and say they’re not a good basketball team. They’re the defending champs. They’ve won it three times. In order for us to beat them, we have to play at a high level. We can’t have mental mistakes. And we’ve got to play harder than them. We can’t play as hard as them. We have to play harder than them.”

There’s a good chance the Timberwolves will play harder than the Lakers tonight.

What then?