Garnett Has Right Stuff in Clutch

MINNEAPOLIS —  Midway in the fourth quarter, Kevin Garnett cradled the basketball in his hands on the right wing.

With a quick first step, he blew past Chris Webber along the baseline, gathered the ball, leaped high into the air and threw down a dunk, igniting another standing ovation from a full-throated, stick-banging crowd at the Target Center.

On his 28th birthday, Garnett soared over everyone Wednesday night, leading the Minnesota Timberwolves to an 83-80 victory over the Sacramento Kings in Game 7 of their Western Conference semifinal playoff series.

When the shot clock was winding down inside of four minutes to play, Garnett made a three-point shot from beyond the top of the key.

When the Kings brought the ball into the frontcourt inside of a minute left, only a three-point basket away from trimming their deficit to one point, Garnett stepped in front of a Brad Miller pass and stole the ball.

When Miller took a rebound under the basket inside of five seconds left and put up a shot, Garnett swatted it into the seats.

The NBA’s most valuable player scored 32 points, took 21 rebounds and made 12 of 23 shots. He had 14 points, five rebounds and three of his five blocked shots in the fourth quarter, practically willing the Timberwolves to a pulsating victory in the first Game 7 in franchise history, sending the Kings into the summer with their third Game 7 loss in three seasons.

The top-seeded Timberwolves, who before this season had never made it past the first round of the playoffs, will play the Lakers in the Western Conference finals starting Friday night at the Target Center.

Sam Cassell, fighting through back spasms that had limited his effectiveness over the previous four games, had 23 points and seven assists. Latrell Sprewell scored 14 points. Wally Szczerbiak scored 10.

But the Timberwolves made it this far on the wings of Garnett, who had promised he would come ready for the decisive game, making a war analogy regarding his preparedness that was so over the top he later apologized for it.

He had been double- and triple-teamed by the Kings throughout a combative, confrontational series, but he was determined to fight through it.

“Tonight I was just like ... I’m just going to go,” he said. “I told myself, ‘Hey, they’ve got to come and stop me.’ They’d been trapping me to give the ball up, but I was just going. I told everybody, ‘Just follow my lead.’

“I felt like I was really centered. I just played.”

Said Coach Flip Saunders: “What can you say about K.G.? I said today at shoot-around that seventh games a lot of times define who you are, and a lot of times the bigger the game the bigger the player steps up....

“There was a lot of pressure on him, and he rose to the occasion. I thought he had a calmness about him. As I’ve always said a lot of times, especially to Kevin, when you really have to work you’re usually not playing very well. I think tonight he didn’t really have to work; he was really in a flow....

“He’s never been better.”

But even as well as Garnett played -- at one point, he scored 13 consecutive points for the Timberwolves in the fourth quarter -- the outcome wasn’t decided until Webber’s three-point shot at the buzzer rattled in and out of the basket.

The streaky Kings, who rallied from a 13-point second-quarter deficit to briefly take the lead late in the third quarter, trailed by nine points late in the fourth quarter before rallying again in the last two minutes.

And even after Cassell made two free throws with 16.2 seconds left, providing the final margin, and Garnett blocked Miller’s shot out of bounds with 2.5 seconds remaining, the Kings still had one more shot.

Webber took a pass on the right wing and faked, Garnett flying past, before launching the last shot of another heartbreaking King loss.

“It did everything but go in,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

It wasn’t the Kings’ night.

It was Garnett’s.

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Lost Causes

Franchises that have gone the most seasons without winning the NBA championship:

(* still active in the playoffs):

*--* SEASONS TEAMS 53...KINGS 46...HAWKS 36...SUNS 34...CAVALIERS 34...CLIPPERS 33...BUCKS 31...KNICKS 29...WARRIORS 29...JAZZ 28...NUGGETS 27...*PACERS 27...*NETS 27...TRAIL BLAZERS 26...WIZARDS 25...SUPERSONICS 23...MAVERICKS 21...76ERS

*--*