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Shaq Catches the June Bug

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Times Staff Writer

After a wait that tried their patience and maybe scared them a little, the Lakers had Shaquille O’Neal again.

Not for parts of a game. Not for flashes after he caught his breath and rested his foot. Him. All of him. From the dunks to the agility to the flair, close enough that if they had looked hard enough, the Lakers might have seen ... June.

For the record:

12:00 a.m. March 10, 2003 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Monday March 10, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 30 words Type of Material: Correction
Pro basketball -- A photo caption in Sports on Saturday misidentified a Minnesota Timberwolves player. The photo was of the Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal dunking over Marc Jackson, not Gary Trent.

O’Neal scored a season-high 40 points and the Lakers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 106-96, Friday night at Staples Center, where their four-peat took life again in the bounce of his step. He took 14 rebounds. He blocked five shots. He ran the game his way, on both ends of the floor, as though it was spring already.

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Kobe Bryant scored 30 points. Mark Madsen leaned on Kevin Garnett, and Garnett scored only 15 points. The Lakers had only five turnovers and played reasonably well, enough to maintain what they’ve gathered since early January, enough to inch again through the Western Conference standings.

But this was about O’Neal, who took 25 shots, the most he’d had in nearly two months, and made 16 of them. He smiled, stuck out his tongue playfully at his wife a few rows from the sideline, shuddered his shoulders on trips up the floor.

“I know what ... I’m doing,” he said. “Whenever I don’t do something, something must be wrong. Don’t always blame it on, ‘He did this too late. He did that too late. His foot’s messed up.’ I know what ... I’m doing. So, just be patient, or get ... out.”

O’Neal did not play for three games in mid-February, a week he used to gather strength in his knee and feel in his toe, along with a pretty fair amount of criticism, and since then he has averaged 29 points and 12.6 rebounds. The Lakers have lost once since, on a night in Seattle when he believed the offense forgot about him.

In seven games since he rested, he has made 67% from the field and 71% of his free throws. Better for the Lakers than the numbers is the attitude; he licks his fingertips and demands the basketball, and his teammates comply, mostly.

“I’m getting there,” he said. “When it’s time to be there, I’ll be fully there.”

The Utah Jazz, holding sixth place in the Western Conference standings, lost to the Sacramento Kings. The Lakers, in seventh, are half a game behind and even in the loss column. They are two losses behind the Timberwolves and play them again Friday night in Minneapolis.

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The Timberwolves play in Phoenix and Dallas before returning home. They have lost three in a row for the first time since mid-November and the second time this season.

The Lakers have won eight of nine and 15 of 18 games. They have done it often on the backs of their superstars, the backs of the men everyone figured on.

Billed as a showdown between regular-season MVP candidates Bryant and Garnett, the game instead went through O’Neal, the MVP for the last three NBA Finals and perhaps starting to feel his game again.

Afterward, Phil Jackson said, ‘He looked good, didn’t he?” -- an observation that carried the night.

“I’ll let him have the points every night,” said Bryant, who still found room for 24 shots and made 12. “He’s feeling good, we’re going to continue to go to him. It felt good to see how light he was on his toes. I haven’t seen him this agile in a while. I think we’re all reassured by that.”

The Lakers -- and Madsen, in particular -- defended Garnett with some enthusiasm, held him to six field goals in 17 attempts, and assumed no other Timberwolves possessed the offensive potency to beat them, or at least to stay with O’Neal and Bryant. Rasho Nesterovic, who took the brunt of O’Neal’s spins and pushes on one end, missed one shot in 10 and scored 19 points.

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Madsen ran hard and played hard and then in the fourth quarter Garnett shouted angry things at him, which bothered Madsen not at all.

“I was fired up, he was fired up,” Madsen said. “I’ve always admired his game.”

By then, Garnett was fired up at everything. When Derek Fisher and Wally Szczerbiak tangled after a pick Fisher believed was too hard, Garnett barged in and Robert Horry followed, which led to technical fouls for Garnett and Horry. Garnett screamed, “Don’t put your hands on me!” at Horry, who two nights before had squared off with two of Indiana’s forwards.

Madsen did not commit a foul in 31 minutes, the majority of them defending Garnett, and scored 10 points.

“I was really [mad] that he had 10 points off me,” Garnett said.

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