Lakers Lose Their Edge

The Lakers, true to their season, true to the rigors of playing for their fourth consecutive championship, will play from behind, naturally.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, becoming something different, it seems, every day, will play the postseason from ahead for the first time in their history.

They defeated the Lakers, 114-110, Thursday night at Staples Center, where Kevin Garnett scored 33 points before fouling out, and now the Timberwolves are ahead, two games to one, in the best-of-seven first round. Game 4 is Sunday afternoon at Staples.

“We’ve got so much belief in ourselves, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks,” Garnett said.

Kobe Bryant, who played with a jammed right shoulder, scored 30 points. Shaquille O’Neal scored 28. Derek Fisher had 23.

“I don’t think anybody’s scared,” Laker guard Brian Shaw said. “Right now, if anybody in this locker room isn’t mad, they should be. They gave us a number of opportunities to win this game tonight, and we didn’t do it. That’s the only thing that leaves a question in your mind.

“We need to win three before they win two, but no reason to be afraid.”

The Lakers finished regulation on a 7-2 run, Bryant tying the score, 101-101, with the second of two free throws with 12.1 seconds left. He missed the first, the Lakers’ 12th miss in 27 regulation attempts. He also had a chance to tie it in the final seconds of overtime, but his three-point try just missed.

Overall, the Lakers missed 14 of 36 free throws and committed 18 turnovers.

It came, finally, to a frantic fourth quarter, the Lakers holding desperately to their view of themselves as three-time champions, the Timberwolves, in their history, having never led a series.

From the final seconds of the third quarter, the Lakers scored 19 of the game’s last 26 points to tie the score, 87-87, with 5:45 left. They shot jumpers for most of the series, and then went hard to the rim for the final quarter, and 17 seconds later they led, 89-87, for their first lead since the first quarter.

The crowd stood for most of the final six minutes, begged for defense, leaned for the jumpers, screamed for the points, sighed at free throws that bounced off the rim.

The Timberwolves charged back to a 95-89 lead as the Lakers failed to score in six consecutive possessions after taking their lead.

Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders has made it an awkward series, at least. He has called out the Laker role players, has made them advance the ball against full-court pressure and at least consider running a double team at Garnett. At the same time, he has given his players something more than confidence. He has given them a plan that actually looks as if it could beat the Lakers.

The Timberwolves double-teamed Bryant when he had the ball and tripled O’Neal when he had it and stared out at the rest of the Lakers.

O’Neal reached halftime with nine points. Bryant was five for 14 from the floor. The Lakers had shot two free throws, the Timberwolves 10, continuing the trend of the first two games, when the Timberwolves shot 18 more than the Lakers. And the Lakers were down only six, thanks in large part to Fisher, who made four of five threes and scored 14 points.

The Lakers are a much better defensive team when the other team is missing open shots. Otherwise, they’re so-so at best, the Timberwolves having shot 52.7% from the floor in the first two games of the series, much of that being carried by Garnett’s 61.9%.

The Timberwolves’ perimeter shooting left an interesting issue for Phil Jackson, who could leave speedy Jannero Pargo on Troy Hudson, but it meant sitting Fisher, who is hotter from the outside than he has been in two years.

Bryant awoke Thursday morning and found his shoulder better, if not quite well enough to shoot yet. He skipped his usual routine in the shoot-around, took, “a considerable amount of treatment,” according to Jackson, and did not appear to be terribly limited in his fundamental game. Bryant made only 10 of 28 shots.

“His movement is restricted,” Jackson had said. “He’s got some pain on extension. I think his shot motion is going to be OK. I hope it’s accurate, but I doubt if we’ll see any flying dunks or blocked shots.”

The Lakers broke out somewhat more aggressively than they had in Game 2, and the Timberwolves didn’t come with quite the same energy. As a result, the series, in its third game, had its first tie (2-2) and its first lead change. The Lakers led end-to-end in Game 1, lost end-to-end in Game 2, setting up the series as something more than the Laker rout many had assumed.

The Timberwolves finished the first quarter on a 9-2 run, the final three on a 33-footer by Hudson just before the buzzer and a few seconds after Robert Horry had thrown an entry pass off the stanchion behind the backboard. Horry, who started instead of Mark Madsen and for the first time since April 8, had three of the Lakers’ five turnovers in the first quarter, and the Timberwolves led, 29-24. It was a period in which O’Neal made one field goal and the Timberwolves shot 59.1%, and Staples Center got, well, quieter.

“Question was, would we be able to come back and maintain that intensity [of Game 2],” Saunders said. “And we came out and didn’t back down.”