He’s Guy Bringing Dread to the Lakers

Shaq, Kobe, KG and ... who?

No, no one here was worried that the Lakers would be up to their necks in teeth before the series against the Timberwolves started, but that was eight days ago, before Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, the game’s mightiest tandem, found itself in a shootout with Kevin Garnett and Troy Hudson.

Of course, Laker fans had only one question:

WHO’S TROY HUDSON?

There’s no small disbelief involved, watching your three-time defending champions on the verge of getting their ticket punched by some waif who goes about 6 feet, 160, including the dreadlocks, whose name isn’t even Allen Iverson.

O’Neal and Bryant are arguably the NBA’s most powerful tandem ever. Even an observer as detached and skeptical as Timberwolf General Manager Kevin McHale speaks respectfully of them, although he doesn’t like comparing them to duos of the past.

“Come on,” McHale said. “That’s like saying the Roman Army was really good but how would they have done against a Panzer division?”

Shaq and Kobe are averaging the expected 62 points between them (Bryant 32, O’Neal 30) ... putting them only five points ahead of the relatively -- OK, completely -- unheralded tandem of Garnett and Hudson.

Garnett is averaging 30. Then there’s Hudson, who never averaged double figures until last season when he put up 11 in Orlando, before signing with the Timberwolves, going to a career-high 14 this season

Not that this is a surprise to Hudson, who says he knew, or hoped, he had it in him, even if no one else predicted it, including blood relatives.

“Not really, because I know KG is going to bring it every night,” said Hudson, after getting 28 more Sunday, including five three-pointers that led the Timberwolves into a third-quarter, 11-point lead before the Lakers rallied, yet again.

“I know I have the ability to bring it every night. Whenever I’m aggressive and they allow me just to play ... to not really worry about the type of shots I take, just let me play -- that’s what I’ve been doing all my life, just playing basketball.”

Of course, Hudson actually broke in here, not that he had a long or memorable stay.

He was a Clipper. You think Jack, Dyan, Dustin and Heather remember when he arrived in 1999, back when they were on the other side of the Harbor Freeway?

People in the Clipper organization barely remember, or are trying to forget. That was the last season in the Sports Arena, the lockout-shortened 1998-99 campaign when owner Donald T. Sterling put off hiring a coach until the labor stoppage was over. Then came the dispirited 1999-2000 season, when the coach, Chris Ford, was fired.

Hudson arrived fresh from Sioux Falls, S.D., in the CBA in 1999, on a 10-day contract. He was so impressive the Clippers re-signed him, for another 10 days. Truly impressed at the end of the season, they gave him a two-year deal, the second at the team’s option, which they then chose not to exercise.

“I mean, I was just happy to be in the NBA,” Hudson said. “... Coming from the CBA, I was happy to be somewhere where I could finally showcase my talent....

“I just came to practice one day and they told me they had made the decision to release me.”

Then came two seasons in Orlando where Coach Doc Rivers discovered that even if Hudson wasn’t really a point guard, he was coming fast as a scorer, with a killer crossover dribble and an improving jumper.

Nevertheless, the Magic was in a budget crunch and let him go, to resurface last fall in Minnesota, which wanted to cut Terrell Brandon’s minutes and had lost backup Chauncey Billups.

Brandon’s minutes fell all the way to zero when his surgically repaired knee failed to respond, and Hudson became the starter.

Instead of the disaster widely predicted for the Timberwolves this season, they won 51 games. Instead of the disaster widely predicted for them in this series, it’s 2-2.

Sunday, they took the Lakers’ best punch, came back and took over the game before the Lakers took it back.

“We knew a little bit,” Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders said of his new star. “... I don’t think anyone envisioned he would come in as a starter and all of a sudden start averaging basically six assists a game....

“Troy can get it going. He had a game three-four weeks ago when we played Dallas when he had 18-20 in the third quarter.... He gets in a rhythm and he can score in bunches.”

The Lakers have noticed. Sunday Coach Phil Jackson sent Bryant out to play him at times.

“Everyone mentions the teams you’ve got to beat, and it’s the Lakers, and it’s San Antonio and it’s Sacramento and Dallas, and everyone stops there,” Saunders said. “I think we’ve at least let people know, they’ll throw us in maybe every other day at least.”

They’ve let the Lakers know, at the very least.