One quarter into Saturday night’s Game 1 against the Lakers at Crypto.com Arena, things hadn’t gone very well for the Minnesota Timberwolves. They had committed four turnovers, allowed five offensive rebounds to LA, and watched as Luka Doncic got off to a red-hot start with 16 points. The result being just a seven-point deficit was perhaps encouraging, given how poorly they had played.
Once the second quarter began, the Wolves took off and didn’t look back. They drilled eight threes in the second, including four from Naz Reid, and took an 11-point lead into halftime. The run continued into the third quarter, when Minnesota hit seven more threes. An Anthony Edwards triple with five minutes left in the third made it a 27-point lead for the Wolves, who had outscored the Lakers 64-30 since the first quarter ended.
LA was able to cut into the deficit a bit, but never got closer than 12 points and ultimately fell 117-95 in an emphatic Game 1 victory for the Timberwolves. Afterwards, the consistent message from the Lakers was about matching Minnesota’s physicality better in Game 2 on Tuesday night.
“They’re a great opponent,” head coach JJ Redick said.
“They’re one of the best teams in basketball. It’s not to say our guys weren’t ready to withstand a playoff-level basketball game. We were mentally ready, I thought our spirit was right. … I’m not sure physically we were ready. When they started playing with a lot of thrust and physicality, we just didn’t respond immediately to that.”
An obvious difference-maker for the Wolves in this game was that they hit 21 of their 42 three-point attempts, over half of which were wide-open looks. They generated all kinds of great shots by driving and kicking the ball out, by moving in transition, and by crashing the offensive glass. They also imposed their will a bit with their size advantage, particularly on the defensive end. Doncic had 37 points but only one assist. LeBron James and Austin Reaves combined for 35 points on 31 shots.
“You know when you’re playing a Minnesota team, they’re gonna be physical,” said James, who is now 32-24 in Game 1s in his legendary career (and 12-11 in the previous 23 series where his team drops the opener).
“That’s what they bring to the table. Maybe it took us one playoff game to now get a feel for it and know the type of intensity, the type of physicality that’s gonna be brought to the game. That’s just the way they play. So we should be more than prepared for that on Tuesday night.”
“We gotta be way more physical,” Doncic said. “It’s 48 minutes and every possession matters.”
It’s going to be fascinating to see what kind of adjustments are made on Tuesday. The Wolves probably aren’t going to shoot 50 percent from deep all series, but they have lots of guys who are capable of drilling open looks. Redick and the Lakers will look to respond in the schematic chess match in Game 2, but maybe more importantly, they’ll hope to come out and play with more physicality and intensity on both ends.
“Obviously, we gotta do a better job of controlling the controllables, and I don’t think we did a good enough job after the first quarter,” James said.
“They blitzed us in that second quarter, 38-20. But giving up 21 threes, giving up 20-plus fast-break points, second-chance points, those are some of the things that we can control. Obviously the three-point shooting, we know they have a lot of lasers, they have a lot of guys that can shoot from the perimeter, so we gotta do a better job of closing to bodies and getting out on shooters.”
LBJ: “Maybe it took us one playoff game to now get a feel for it.”
