An MVP Upgrade for Malone

Having dispensed with Tim Duncan, the NBA’s most valuable player in the two seasons before this one, Karl Malone will begin the process that is defending Kevin Garnett, this season’s MVP, tonight at Target Center.

At 40, Malone, twice an MVP himself, said he appreciated five days between top-of-the-line power forwards, time he spent resting his sprained right ankle and various other body parts.

Garnett had fashioned a nice career for himself, but it had been tainted by his inability to drag the Minnesota Timberwolves out of the first round, a history that included a six-game loss to the Lakers last season.

Now Garnett is in the Western Conference finals, primarily because he had 32 points and 21 rebounds Wednesday night against the Sacramento Kings, who aren’t ever dead until the last airball lands.

It all means more for Malone, who kept Duncan from anything too dynamic in the conference semifinals and draws similar duty in the conference finals.

“My ankle’s feeling better,” Malone said an hour before the Lakers left for Minneapolis Thursday afternoon. “So we’ll see.”

Garnett averaged 20.5 points in four games against the Lakers this season. Malone did not play in two of them.

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Gary Payton telephoned Sam Cassell late Wednesday night to congratulate his old friend on vanquishing Mike Bibby and the Kings, just as Cassell had called Payton after Game 6.

The veteran point guards, both in their mid-30s, developed a friendship over the years, cementing it when they shared a backcourt in Milwaukee for half of last season. They’re both big for point guards, they’re both wiry and competitive and, it turns out, they’re both susceptible to lower-back trouble.

Payton has had enough time to heal. Cassell has not, though Payton said Cassell claimed otherwise on the telephone.

“He said he’s all right, he’s cool,” Payton said.

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Rick Fox, the league’s foremost authority on the fragility of King psyches, on Wednesday night’s game: “I would have been disappointed if they won, because it goes against character.”

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Fox has not played any meaningful minutes since Game 3 of the first round, but he could be called upon to defend Wally Szczerbiak or Latrell Sprewell.

Otherwise, he said, “I’ll be working my M.L. Carr game” -- sideline towel-waving.

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Derek Fisher appeared on “The Tonight Show” this week to talk about the shot that felled the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5.

According to Sportsbybrooks.com, Fisher informed Jay Leno, “You know what else you can do in 0.4 seconds? Hit the fast-forward button on the TiVo and go right past your monologue.”