The shirt’s been inside LeBron James’ extra locker since the day he received it, a facsimile of the Lakers’ iconic golden jerseys with No. 77 on the front and “Doncic” on the back.
James wore a shirt exactly like it during pregame warmups on Feb. 10, a very public signal from someone rarely subtle that he was ready to embrace the partnership put on him when the Lakers made the midseason trade that gave the team two of the NBA’s best big-game players.
But in the Game 5 loss that ended their season Wednesday, Luka Doncic was grimacing after a foul jammed his lower back in the first half. And James barely put weight on his left leg as he limped off the court in the fourth quarter.
Still, with a little more than seven minutes to go, the two were on the court, the Lakers ready to back up the widely held belief that the closer the game, the better off they’d be because of their leaders.
The scoreboard in Crypto.com Arena showed highlights of Doncic and James, their No. 77 and No. 23 uniforms adding up to a 100, with just three minutes to go and the Lakers down two.
But like it did late in fourth quarters throughout this postseason, the math never added up.
Doncic, again, missed a key layup. James, again, couldn’t find a rhythm in the fourth quarter.
And even as that Doncic shirt hung inside the Lakers’ locker, the hope that had been built over the last two months had totally evaporated as the Lakers again failed to win the biggest moments, a 103-96 loss ending their season after just five games in the first round.
It didn’t matter that Minnesota missed 40 three-point shots, the most ever by a team in a postseason win. They seemed to grab every rebound. It didn’t matter that Anthony Edwards was just 5-of-19 from the field — the Lakers couldn ‘t capitalize. And it didn’t matter that the Lakers were on their home court, Minnesota silencing the fans as they defensively dominated the fourth quarter for the fifth straight game.
JJ Redick sacrificed size for quickness and spacing, benching center Jaxson Hayes and starting Dorian Finney-Smith like he did in the second half of Game 4. This time, Rudy Gobert made the Lakers pay with playoff career highs of 27 points and 24 rebounds.
Doncic had 28 on seven-of-18. James scored 22 on nine-of-21 shooting. Austin Reaves had only 12.
Like it was all series, things never looked easy for the Lakers.
The bulk of that credit should go to Minnesota, who not only looked like the more cohesive team but functioned as one designed almost explicitly to smother highlighter over every one of the Lakers’ blemishes.
The Lakers, who won games by playing hard, lost to a team that always seemed to play harder. The Lakers, who earned home court advantage by being tougher, lost to a team that was undoubtedly tougher. And the Lakers, who looked like they could beat anyone in the regular season, lost to a team that they obviously couldn’t.
Redick, who described the Lakers as “on edge” in the practice before Game 5, angrily responded to a question that implied he needed to lean on his assistant coaches to better handle late-game substitutions.
His team quickly fell behind, Julius Randle, the first piece of the Lakers’ post-Kobe Bryant plans, looking like the bulldozing tone-setter the team envisioned when it took him in the first round in 2014.
James and Doncic, who owned the top two scoring averages in elimination games in league history, made just one of their eight shots in the first quarter. With each miss, the murmurs from the crowd grew longer, the fans mirroring the Lakers and their fading chances.
The team pushed early in the second as Randle and Jaden McDaniels, maybe the series MVP, both sat with foul trouble allowing the Lakers to get it on multiple occasions within a single possession.
But in the moments when the Lakers and their stars needed to capitalize in those stretches, they looked more like separate entities than an unstoppable force. James tried to find Doncic as he flared to the corner and threw a pass directly to Anthony Edwards. Doncic couldn’t play on the defensive string the Lakers all needed to be pulling on, Minnesota’s easy baskets leading to James’ open frustration towards the Lakers’ bench.
But with their season on the line, the Lakers did something they’d rarely done all year – they dominated the third quarter. The Lakers fought back from as many as 14 down to lead on a Dorian Finney-Smith three, trading possessions with the Timberwolves to trail by just one heading to the fourth.
But the Lakers scored only 16 points in the fourth quarter, a feeble end for an offense that could’ve been more potent.
The loss is the first time the Lakers have ever lost a first-round series as a No. 3 seed or higher. The team is also just 2-12 in its last three playoff series.
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