Win is a real howler

The Lakers finally revisited the concept of holding a team under 100, but there was a glaring omission of something equally important -- an offense.

The Lakers sputtered and coughed their way to a 98-86 victory Sunday night over the Minnesota Timberwolves at Staples Center.

They came in averaging a league-best 108.5 points a game, which, coupled with Minnesota’s leaky defense -- 22nd in the league -- should have produced a bonanza of points.

Not the case.

Only in the last quarter did they push the Timberwolves away, replacing the sandpaper feeling of the game with merely a wet-paper feeling.

The Lakers improved to 20-3, Phil Jackson’s best three-loss record with the Lakers, though there was still the feeling they hadn’t put together a complete game in a while.

The Timberwolves came in with a 4-18 record, an eight-game losing streak and an 0-3 record since Kevin McHale came down from the front office to coach the team after Randy Wittman was fired last week.

But the Lakers couldn’t exploit them.

There was even another appearance of a recent phenomenon at Lakers home games -- mild booing. Lakers fans were not enthused after Minnesota center Al Jefferson blocked Andrew Bynum’s shot, dribbled all the way down court and hit a short runner.

The Timberwolves had 16 offensive rebounds to only nine for the Lakers, as good an indicator as any that things just weren’t right for the home team.

Phil Jackson called the effort “loggy,” Kobe Bryant said in a flat monotone that he “didn’t see anything wrong” with the victory, and Lamar Odom carried the night with his observations.

“We have to execute the half-court offense,” he said. “Game’s not going to be always up and down.”

He also wasn’t thrilled that Bryant and Pau Gasol couldn’t leave the game until it ended.

“This is the time that Pau and Kobe should be putting their ice on [their knees],” he said. “We can’t hold a lead. These guys have to come back in the game and can’t get a rest. That’s awful.”

Then he jammed his hands in his pockets and stalked out of the locker room.

The Lakers weren’t really guilty of blowing a big lead, mainly because they never established a double-figure advantage until Bynum’s layup provided a 76-66 edge with 8 minutes 37 seconds to play.

That the struggles came against a team that hadn’t won since Nov. 28 was another surprise.

Bryant scored 26 points but made only nine of 24 shots. The Lakers were outrebounded, 53-46. If not for the Timberwolves’ missing plenty of open shots -- they shot 36.1% overall, which was only partly attributable to the Lakers’ defense -- the game would have been that much closer.

Gasol had 18 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and three blocked shots, continuing his solid all-around play, though the offense in general short-circuited.

After sending reporters scrambling to look up “loggy” (a quick check of an online dictionary revealed nothing), Jackson settled on the word “stagnant” to describe the Lakers’ offense.

He also wasn’t sure what to say about the Lakers’ inability to easily put away inferior teams, an ever-growing list that now includes the team with the NBA’s second-worst record.

“I don’t know what it shows, to be honest with you,” he said. “I can’t point to anything specific. But a lot of it shows that we’re not going on those spurts, those runs that we had.”

It could also mean the dreaded cliche of playing down to the competition’s level.

“Could be,” Jackson said. “It’s a challenge. We’ll see if these guys meet the challenge, if we can get them ready for those games. Right now it doesn’t seem like our quickness or our execution or our speed is there that I like.”

The first half was nothing short of pedestrian, the Lakers taking a mild 42-37 edge.

The second half was somewhat better for the Lakers, not that they cared to talk about it effusively afterward.

It was simply a “loggy” kind of night.

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mike.bresnahan@latimes.com