Lakers Still on the March

Over three days in late March, when the schedule and their consciences demanded it, the Lakers became what they expected to be when the superstar reinforcements began to arrive eight months ago.

Forty-eight hours after the Sacramento Kings were undressed at Staples Center, the Minnesota Timberwolves came in with the same designs on the championship the Lakers left to someone else a year ago, and they left similarly.

After losing three games to the maturing Timberwolves, the Lakers were 90-73 winners Friday night.

April is apparently close enough for the Lakers. They have won seven consecutive games and since mid-February are 18-4, the league’s best record after the All-Star break.

While they strained through the early parts of that stretch, failing particularly on the defensive side, they have rounded their game. Because defense seemed to be good enough for the 40-year-old guy against the MVP candidate, the Lakers followed Karl Malone to that end of the floor and joined him in the commitment.

As a result, they won another late-season game, against another team that perhaps suspected this was coming. The Lakers, at 49-23, have the second-best record in the Western Conference, and sit two games behind the Kings.

“They’ve got the smell of it,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “That’s what you want to happen, know the finish line is close. We’ve got a long ways to go, a lot of games to play and a lot of quarters to play. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We still have to win on the road to do this.”

That being said, being swept by the Timberwolves was not part of the plan.

“We really wanted to send a message to them that the playoffs are not going to be easy against us,” he added.

While Kobe Bryant (35 points, nine assists) and Shaquille O’Neal (22 points, 18 rebounds) did the heavy lifting on offense, the Lakers held the Timberwolves to 31.4% shooting.

Kevin Garnett, the popular most-valuable-player choice with three weeks to play, was six for 18 from the floor, mostly against Malone. Latrell Sprewell was five for 15. Troy Hudson, a Laker killer since last spring, missed his seven shots.

“You want to be playing well when the playoffs start,” Sprewell said. “That’s what they’re doing.”

Before the Lakers relaxed in the latter parts of the fourth quarter, they held leads of 13 points in the second quarter and 24 in the third quarter, in which the Lakers outscored the Timberwolves, 28-12. At that point, the Timberwolves, an average offensive team, had 54 points. The Kings shot 41% from the field Wednesday night.

In the span of three nights, Rick Fox said, “I learned we can play defense, and we can play the type of defense that will win you a championship.”

The Lakers shot 39.3 % themselves, and still hardly broke a sweat for a second consecutive fourth quarter, against what should be another top-four seed in the playoffs.

Malone played 25 minutes, missed eight of nine field-goal attempts, and still set a physical tone the Lakers lacked when he sat out 39 games because of a knee injury.

A couple of minutes into the second quarter, he became entangled with Mark Madsen, and Madsen ended up draped across Malone’s back, like a shawl. Through it all, Malone clenched his fists and snarled at referees and drove teammates to defend with something close to dedication.

By the third quarter, Malone noted that more than a few of the Timberwolves “were pulling on their shorts,” a sign of fatigue.

“You say, ‘OK, they’re working for it now,’ ” he said.

Back from Colorado the night before, Bryant attended Friday’s shoot-around. After two round-trips to Colorado and one rivalry basketball game in two days, Bryant made 13 of 21 shots, and paid closer attention to Sprewell in the second half. He played again without a pad or compression shirt for his sprained right shoulder and, by the end, Laker fans chanted “MVP!” during his free throws, the season’s second half becoming his. Or maybe theirs.

“We’re pretty much doing what we’re supposed to do,” said O’Neal, averaging more than 16 rebounds over his last nine games. “The team’s looking real good right now. We got 10 games left, before the real season starts.”