They announced tonight's Target Center crowd at 20,200, or the season's largest and the all-time fifth biggest if there weren't a healthy smattering of empty seats.
Still, iit was a big crowd -- especially by this season's standards -- who came to see the Lakers only visit this season, with just three games remaining.
They came wearing gold Lakers t-shirts and No. 24 jerseys, but never got a chance to see Kobe Bryant, who missed his second game in as many nights because of swelling in his knee.
Andrew Bynum remains out and Al Jefferson didn't play, either. He missed a second straight game to be with a female relative hospitalized in the Twin Cities, a team spokesman said.
Even without Bryant, the Lakers led by as many as 18 late in the second quarter, but the Wolves reversed that with a big third quarter, then got within four points three times late in the game.
The last came in the final three minutes, but Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom answered in a closing 9-4 run that clinched for the Lakers the Western Conference No. 1 playoff seed.
Gasol compensated for Bryant's absence with a 29-point, 15-rebound night.
Odom provided the evening's best line.
