Lakers Fall Asleep, and Apart, in Loss

They were tired and weary, concerned about lack of rest and so much fatigue so early in the season.

With good reason, it turned out.

The Lakers, up late the night before thanks to a prickly Utah team in a cable-TV overtime game (think long timeouts, over and over), rolled out of bed Friday morning, gathered sleepily at a shoot-around and then dozed off against the Minnesota Timberwolves a little later, 113-108, Friday at Staples Center.

Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom each came close to a triple-double, and there was help from “the others,” this time Smush Parker and Brian Cook, but then the fourth quarter came and left without a hint of defense from the Lakers.

The Timberwolves had 39 points in the final quarter, turning what could have been a Laker victory into an utter meltdown, rest assured.

What once was an 18-point lead caved in under a flurry of Wally Szczerbiak and Troy Hudson three-pointers in the fourth quarter, as the Lakers fell to 0-3 in the second game of back-to-back situations.

The Lakers had their highest-scoring half of the season, and proved they were still somewhat awake by maintaining an 82-74 edge after three quarters, before disintegrating badly.

“There’s no explanation for that,” Parker said. “There’s really no explanation for an 18-point lead to slip away from us at home. There’s no excuse.”

Bryant had 20 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, and Odom basically matched him, with 24 points, seven rebounds and eight assists. Parker had 22 points and Cook had 19.

But Szczerbiak had 34 points, 17 in a fourth quarter in which the Timberwolves made an unsightly 13 of 17 shots (76.5%) and hit six of seven three-point attempts.

“They got on fire and we just didn’t have an answer to slowing them down,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “I think we’re a little bit thin and we’re a little bit tired. Those two things in the fourth quarter come into play in a 48-minute game.”

It was an unsettling end to a long day that started with a 3 a.m. return from an overtime victory in Utah and later worsened with news that reserve guard Aaron McKie would be out at least a month because of a partial tear in his left quadriceps.

In between came a phone call for Jackson from triangle-offense guru Tex Winter, who observed that the Lakers had looked tired against Utah, sometimes putting their hands on their knees, even when the ball was in play.

“The person that looks most fatigued is Kobe,” Jackson said before Friday’s game. “His legs got tired [against Utah]. We had to go in other directions, decidedly to Lamar.”

Neither Odom nor Bryant carried the Lakers in the first half against Minnesota. Instead, Cook had 14 points and Parker 12 as the Lakers put together a 60-45 halftime lead with their best half of the season.

But Szczerbiak exposed the Laker defense, as did Hudson, who scored seven of his 18 points in the fourth quarter.

“[Szczerbiak] is a player that runs hot and cold and Lamar let him get going right off the bat almost in the beginning of the second half,” Jackson said. “It started a rampage.”

And a retreat by the Lakers, who came into the game with the league’s 17th-best defense and exited with a 6-9 record.

“We get up by a wide margin and tend to relax,” Bryant said. “Second half, we didn’t do a good job at all.”

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McKie had not been sharp in his short time as a Laker, averaging 0.3 points and 0.6 assists in 8.1 minutes, but he had been playing more minutes recently before coming down on a Jazz player’s foot in the third quarter Thursday. “For this injury at this time, when he’s starting to play well, is disappointing for him, let alone us,” Jackson said. ... Devean George (sore foot) said he expected to return Sunday against Charlotte, but Kwame Brown (strained hamstring) is out at least another week, a team official said.