Lakers Finish Trip Perfectly Satisfied

MINNEAPOLIS —  They needed 20 or so minutes of basketball that would complete their trip, push their season and fill their heads and hearts with playoff conviction.

If the Lakers are on the verge of the playoffs, then they figured they might as well play it that way, and they shoved their way past the Minnesota Timberwolves without their best game, without one of their best players, but with some of their best effort.

They won, 104-99, Sunday at Target Center because they put on a second-half rush, because they overcame an eight-point deficit in the fourth quarter and made shots and took rebounds and took out after loose balls as they rarely have.

“Maybe we’re starting to get it together,” said Brian Shaw, curious himself. “I don’t know.”

Shaquille O’Neal had 34 points and 11 rebounds, and the starting backcourt that again lacked Kobe Bryant--Shaw and Derek Fisher--combined for 36 points. But the difference, really, was the 10 fourth-quarter points by Devean George, the five steals by Fisher, the seven assists by Shaw and then the defensive energy of Horace Grant and Robert Horry against Kevin Garnett, who made four of 14 shots for 11 points, half his season average.

The Lakers won all four games on the trip, stayed a game behind the first-place Sacramento Kings in the Pacific Division, and so assume they’ve found a comfortable place to play the game with four games left in the regular season, all at home.

“You’ve got to look at two things,” Laker Coach Phil Jackson said. “One, Brian Shaw found a real capable way of playing. He doesn’t have a lot of scoring nights all the time, tonight he hit three for three from the three-point line. He finds a way to do some things. Then, the play of Derek. He comes up with loose balls. The charges. He does some things that get us tenacious defensively. Those things have really helped us a lot. Horace Grant has been playing good.

“And look at Shaq. He’s taken off.”

It might mean they are about ready for the playoffs. They have to be. Ready or not, and all.

“We’d like to have been playing like this in January and February, two months we thought we could jump out a little bit, but we didn’t,” Jackson said. “So, we had to put it together sometime. It’s nice to do it now. Now we have to sustain it.”

When O’Neal left the game, he moved past the press table and mouthed, “Baddest big man ever.” He smiled and laughed, having just barreled through Dean Garrett, Reggie Slater and others to make 13 of 24 shots and, as a result of their inability to match force with him, eight of 12 free throws.

After missing a lot of short jumpers early, O’Neal scored 11 points in the fourth quarter.

In his last 13 games, three games before Bryant left the lineup, O’Neal has averaged 32.9 points and 12.9 rebounds. He has scored at least 31 points in seven consecutive games. On the trip, four victories he predicted at the outset, he averaged 36.3 points and 11.5 rebounds.

With the Timberwolves leading, 88-83, in the fourth quarter, O’Neal scored three points in a run that gave the Lakers a 96-90 lead. Shaw scored seven points.

“Guys are getting me the ball in good position,” O’Neal said.

It appears the Lakers played their last game without Bryant, whose left ankle has healed enough so he is ready to come back. Already, two days before Bryant was to return to the court, Jackson suggested again he give his game to the triangle.

Bryant said he expected to return Tuesday against the Phoenix Suns, and Jackson was asked how long it would take Bryant to adjust to the team, and the team to him.

“It depends upon how he comes back and plays,” Jackson said. “If he blends his talent and really slides in seamlessly, he’ll be able to do it in two or three games. Otherwise, we’ll have to go through a whole readjustment period because we have to adjust to Kobe’s style of game. If it stops the offense from functioning, it could take us awhile.”

Isaiah “J.R.” Rider was left behind, again.

Rider, who played only a few minutes Friday in Boston after spending nearly all of the third quarter sulking in the locker room, did not play against the Timberwolves. It could be that Rider’s stay with the Lakers will be in jeopardy when Ron Harper comes off the injured list, or when the Lakers choose their playoff roster.

“I just didn’t like the total feel of the package, the taste that was left in my mouth after Friday night,” Jackson said. “I felt OK about it in some ways, and then there were some things that made me feel like I needed to go to Devean George as a two-guard, and to put Mike Penberthy in there. It worked out for us.”