Can’t Clinch the Deal

Kobe Bryant, full of spunk after losing Game 5 of the Western Conference finals Saturday night, stood in the back of Phil Jackson’s postgame news conference.

Before his coach stood to leave, Bryant shouted, “How do you think the team is going to respond on [Monday]?”

Jackson recognized the voice, looked up and found Bryant’s face. He grinned thinly and, almost under his breath, answered, “They’ll win. They’ll win.”

Understated as guarantees go, but Bryant laughed and accepted Jackson at his word, even as the Laker condition grew slightly precarious.

The Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Lakers, 98-96, at Target Center, where Kevin Garnett’s 30 points and 19 rebounds forced a Game 6, to be played Monday in Los Angeles.

They chant “MVP” in other arenas too.

“I’m not tired at all,” he announced afterward.

The Lakers lost their first close-out game since the 2000 NBA Finals, ending a run of 12 such victories, yet still lead the best-of-seven series, three games to two.

They lost when the Timberwolves scored 17 consecutive points late in the first half and early in the second, and when Latrell Sprewell’s and Fred Hoiberg’s jump shots rejoined the series, and when they all lost sight of Shaquille O’Neal, or he of them.

Sprewell scored 28 points and Hoiberg had 14, nine in the second half, in a game that went on without Sam Cassell, their starting point guard with the sore back.

The Lakers, playing for their fourth NBA Finals in five years, neither rode O’Neal nor Bryant, as O’Neal was quiet and Bryant inefficient.

O’Neal had 17 points, five in the first half, and 13 rebounds. He took 11 shots and 11 free throws. Bryant had 23 points, making eight of 19 shots.

Minnesota led by as much as 16 points, and while the Lakers eventually played themselves close -- Derek Fisher, who had 17 points, scored five in the last six seconds, three on a 26-footer at the horn -- the Lakers played from behind for all of the second half, sometimes from way behind, and left unhappy.

Asked for the postgame mood in a locker room in which he’d keep a low profile, Laker rookie Luke Walton described his teammates as “really disappointed. A championship team should come in and close it out. Now the pressure’s back on us.”

Powerful in consecutive games in Los Angeles, O’Neal was ineffective for long stretches. The Timberwolves surrounded O’Neal and pressured the entry passes and pushed small lineups at the Lakers, and then their jump shooters began to shoot with accuracy, all of which Jackson surmised before the game.

“I think this Minnesota team still believes,” he said, and if it didn’t Saturday afternoon, it did by Saturday night.

Meanwhile, the Lakers had moments when they lost their calm, in which they shot too early and dribbled too often, flaws that O’Neal believed explained his inability to change the outcome.

Pressed on why he didn’t do more, O’Neal said, “You have to ask the guys with the ball. Don’t ask me that.”

The guys with the ball missed some shots, or dribbled it away, or believed O’Neal wasn’t all that open to begin with.

“If Shaq wants the ball, he’ll let us know,” Bryant said. “He becomes very aggressive and very assertive.”

O’Neal did not score from the end of the first quarter to halfway through the third, which helped fuel the Timberwolves’ run that kept them in the series, that kept them playing. The 17-0 spurt turned a 40-33 deficit into a 50-40 lead.

Jackson said the Timberwolves “played pretty much perfect basketball,” good enough to win by two, and to bring everybody back to Los Angeles for something other than a week of rest before the Finals.

It was the plan, of course, Garnett said, the alternative being “summer vacation starts tomorrow.”

“We couldn’t come into the locker room talking about we should’ve, could’ve, would’ve,” Garnett said. “We didn’t want to be in a situation like that. “[Sprewell and I] knew that if we didn’t come out and be aggressive to begin the game, it would pretty much set the tone.”

While they fell behind, 20-10, and the crowd quieted, and their jump shots did not fall, the Timberwolves had tied the score by 23 and led, 29-28. The Lakers, then, did not lead after 40-39, after it appeared they’d almost had the Timberwolves convinced.

Jackson was right, the Timberwolves still believed. Worse, perhaps, Kevin Garnett still believed.

“Not a good day,” Karl Malone said on his way to the bus. “Not a good day.”