Fisher Shows He Can Be Pretty Valuable in Clutch

Kobe Bryant felt lousy and Shaquille O’Neal was missing free throws, a development he said shamed him into playing harder defense, and from that Derek Fisher took one dribble and rose up 18 feet from the basket.

The Lakers had lost in Chicago and Detroit, and the trip was going as bad as it looked, maybe worse, and from that Fisher pulled up and finished off the Minnesota Timberwolves on a Friday night that was to celebrate Kevin Garnett’s rise to most-valuable-player stature.

The Lakers won, 106-99, at Target Center, which sold out for the first time this season. Bryant scored 30 points and O’Neal had 26 points and 15 rebounds, and the Robert Horry-Mark Madsen team kept Garnett to 23 points and 17 rebounds, his usual numbers, which was good enough for the Lakers.

Then, when they needed two more points to kill the two-game losing streak, and when Bryant found himself trapped 27 feet from the basket with the shot clock melting away, it was Fisher who bailed them out. His jumper with 26.6 seconds left gave them a 104-99 lead.

In a Laker era of O’Neal and Bryant and Horry, when the big shots go to the big shots, Fisher scored 21 points, the last two with the sellout crowd begging for defense, shrilly when Wally Szczerbiak forced Bryant to pick up his dribble.

“The rest of us don’t get an opportunity too often,” Fisher said.

He made nine of 16 shots. And after Troy Hudson scored 19 points in the first half, Fisher was part of the solution in the second, when Hudson scored two and the Timberwolves shot 38.1%. The Lakers found their defensive consciences in an edgy second half, when seven steals helped force 10 turnovers, O’Neal blocked three shots and Horry two.

“I liked their energy,” Timberwolf Coach Flip Saunders said, what the Lakers lacked in giving up 116 points to the Bulls and 111 to the Pistons, losses that harmed their hopes to reach the fourth playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The Lakers had come to a critical time, of course. They’d slipped to seventh and the worst of a grueling schedule hadn’t even come. O’Neal, ferocious since mid-February, when he’d taken three games off, was only so-so at the start of the trip. Bryant was ill.

So, rather than win in a gimme place such as Chicago, they’d played themselves into a position where they’d need a win here, and another tonight in Milwaukee, just to get their heads straight again.

“Physically, we’re close to playoff shape,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “Mentally, we have a little work to do to avoid collapses when things start to not go our way. We’d lost three in a row on the road. If we’re going to do anything in these playoffs, we’re going to have to win games on the road.”

Bryant has flu, to which he seems prone. Jackson chose not to reveal it before the game, hoping that by the time the Timberwolves figured it out, it’d be too late. The ruse was on when Bryant scored 13 points in the first quarter.

But he walked the floor dully during timeouts, dragging his right knee slightly, and for all but 2:16 of the second quarter sat on the bench, staring out lifelessly.

“I fought the chills the whole game,” he said.

If Saunders wasn’t on to it then, he knew by the third quarter. As Bryant walked across the floor, Minnesota’s Joe Smith asked how he was doing. Bryant shook his head. “The flu,” he said.

He had felt fine at the morning shoot-around but developed a sore throat and a fever through the afternoon in a place where the locals expected his flashiest game. They got gritty.

The players would not admit to such notions, but the public-address announcer blurted it out early, “An MVP showdown between Kobe and KG”, and everyone screamed for Garnett. They gave out cardboard license plates that read, “KG4MVP,” filled every seat, and from that stepped the point guard no one was thinking about.

“We’ve been through so many things,” Fisher said, “so it’s rare when something decimates us, to where we think everything is lost. We have a very solid basketball team, mentally and emotionally. That’s why we remain confident even when we’re struggling.”

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The West

Western Conference standings, with division leaders 1-2. The top eight teams qualify for postseason:

*--* W-L GB 1. Dallas 49-16 -- 2. Sacramento 46-20 3 1/2 3. San Antonio 46-18 2 1/2 4. Portland 42-23 7 5. Minnesota 42-26 8 1/2 6. Utah 37-28 12 7. Lakers 36-28 12 1/2 8. Phoenix 34-30 14 1/2 8. Houston 34-30 14 1/2 10. Golden St 31-34 3 1/2

*--*