Chilly O’Neal Shows He Isn’t as Fresh as His Excuses

Leave it to that team from the corner of Hollywood and Whine to spend Saturday night putting its own chilly twist on a hot new movie.

“The Day After Tomorrow” was not the end of the world, it was worse.

It was Game 6, Monday.

The giant frozen statue overlooking the destruction was not the Statue of Liberty, it was bigger.

It was Shaquille O’Neal.

A couple of hours from the NBA Finals, the Lakers are still not there, crouched as they are on the withering back of Shaq.

Which is to say, moving very slowly.

The Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Lakers, 98-96, in a potential conference championship close-out game that your heroes treated more like a close-out sale.

Lots of guys trying to get something for nothing.

The biggest culprit was O’Neal, who likes to be called the MDE, which stands for Most Dominant Ever, but which we now know can also mean Mildly Determined Energy.

For the second time in the last two playoff games here, he became the most imaginary 340-pounder in these parts since Paul Bunyan.

After the first quarter, he took only seven shots.

During the middle of the game, he went nearly 24 minutes without a basket.

In the fourth quarter, he did not even make an effort to shoot until there were 44 seconds left.

Symbolically, a late Laker run was essentially squashed when, his team holding the ball and trailing by six points, O’Neal was called for three seconds.

Yeah, he was stuck in the lane. Stuck in first gear. Stuck on three wins in a seven-game series for the first time since 2000.

These are games the Lakers usually dominate, because O’Neal usually gives them no choice.

But as we have learned once more during this strangest of springs, this is not quite the same O’Neal.

Last time he played poorly and the Lakers lost a playoff game here -- when was that, about two hours ago? -- he blamed it on the rain.

This time, he offered an explanation that sounded a lot more wet.

He blamed it on his teammates.

He was asked, what was the problem with his activity?

“You have to ask the guys with the ball, don’t ask me that,” he said.

He was asked, was he prepared for the ball?

“Every time,” he said.

He was asked, was this frustrating?

“Very frustrating,” he said, strolling away from the media crowd. “That’s why I’m walking away from you.”

In previous years, these problems clearly emanated from Kobe Bryant’s need to dribble 2,000 times and shoot.

But as O’Neal has slightly aged and somewhat slowed, the reality has changed with him.

He no longer consistently gains inside position at will. He is no longer the impossible-to-miss target.

When the Lakers play every other night, as they have in this series, he no longer seems to recover quick enough to be the same Diesel every game.

Playing on only one day’s rest in this postseason, he has a 16.9 scoring average.

Playing on two days or more rest, he has a 23.3 average.

In previous years, his frustrated comments would be met by teammates’ sheepish shrugs.

On Saturday, they talked back.

Said Derek Fisher: “I don’t think we’ve ever had a game plan, or a game, where we said we weren’t going to go inside to the big fella. Especially in a big game like this.”

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

For long stretches Saturday night, he was neither.

There was much talk here last week when, in the Lakers’ other loss in this series, O’Neal was played to a draw in the first half by Ervin Not-so-Magic Johnson.

It was so stunning, Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders told his staff that he wanted to frame the score sheet.

What’s he going to do now that Mark Madsen has also played O’Neal to a draw in the first half?

This happened Saturday, Madsen outscoring O’Neal 6-5 and matching him with four rebounds, so the monument has been ordered.

“We showed a lot of heart,” said Saunders, usually a cliche, but on this night, a portrait.

Even O’Neal’s biggest booster, Coach Phil Jackson, stated the obvious.

“He just needs to be more aggressive,” he said of O’Neal.

O’Neal said he felt fine physically. He said, again, that it was literally out of his hands.

“There was a lot of jump shots tonight,” he said, which, in O’Neal speak, means they should have passed him the ball.

“We just didn’t play smart today,” he said, which, in O’Neal speak, means I’m sick and tired of them not passing me the ball.

But after a night when even Minnesota’s Michael Olowokandi showed more energy on a missed dunk, the most important words from O’Neal were the ones he has spoken time and again this season.

You know, his requests for more money. His public insistence on being paid like the best player in the game. That time he even shouted at Jerry Buss from the floor in Hawaii.

In the wake of a second sleepy game in this series, those are the words that resound loudest.

Having talked the talk, O’Neal needs to run the walk.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.

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UP AND DOWN

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Shaquille O’Neal’s averages in the Lakers’ three victories and two losses in the series:

*--* Wins Losses Minutes 41.7 41.0 FG Made-Att. 9.3-12.0 5.0-10.5 FT Made-Att. 8.0-16.0 5.5-12.5 Points 22.6 15.5 Rebounds 18.0 14.5

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