Before the first game of the Lakers’ postseason, head coach JJ Redick clenched as he spoke, a very serious person acting even more seriously than usual.
The moment in front of him and their team was big, a series opener inside their building for the first time since 2012, optimism that extended beyond a single win all the way to 16, belief that their first playoff run with Luka Doncic could be something special.
And that’s what it looked like early Saturday, the crowd rocking as Doncic showed the ways he could carry a team in the postseason, the stepbacks and the mismatches and the finishes in traffic.
But for as much as a brilliant Doncic start can be the opening paragraphs in the story of a Lakers win, it can also be a bit of a mask. Because while Doncic got whatever he wanted, Austin Reaves struggled against Minnesota’s pressure, missing easy shots and the rim and struggling to get the Lakers into offense. LeBron James, whom we last saw on the court grimacing after a hip flexor strain, didn’t have much burst to the basket or much touch on his shot.
And with Doncic on the bench after a 16-point first quarter, that mask came off. The Lakers couldn’t score. They couldn’t match Minnesota’s energy. They couldn’t outrun ball movement or chase down rebounds. And they couldn’t stop an avalanche that hit them with the kind of force that knocked all the energy out of the building.
The game, which Minnesota won 117-95, didn’t end during that stretch, at least not in an official sense. But it sparked everything that followed as the Timberwolves scored 64 of the game’s next 90 points.
It took 19 minutes of court time for the big moment to unravel, for it to fall out of reach, for the season to feel in actual jeopardy for the first time since well before Doncic was a part of it.
The concerns for the Lakers moving forward can be found all over the final box score, the 19-point edge in fast-break points showing how much faster Minnesota played. The 21 second-chance points the Lakers allowed showed the Timberwolves’ determination. The 48 combined points for Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid showed how capable Anthony Edwards’ and Julius Randle’s co-stars are.
The Lakers held Edwards to just 22 points on 22 shots. And lost. The Lakers kept Randle to 16 and Rudy Gobert to just two. And lost.
The Lakers got 37 points from Doncic. And lost.
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