The only thing that moved slower than the Lakers was the clock.
They had poured their energy into fighting for everything while building a lead that stretched to 22 in the first half and lived at 20 deep into the second half. They had grabbed and clawed and got clawed and got grabbed and it was still there, a big lead, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the clock left to beat to even the series at 1-1 and save a split on their home court.
But Minnesota got stronger, faster and smarter.
And the Lakers, mentally and physically, got slower.
Two big mistakes from Jaxson Hayes led to five fast Minnesota points. Luka Doncic, who had been fully engaged on the defensive side of the ball, was flat-footed as Anthony Edwards rammed into the paint. Wide-open threes rimmed out.
And the kind of two-on-one fast break with Austin Reaves and LeBron James that usually would be an alley-oop became an alley-oops when Reaves threw the ball too high and James missed the layup.
But the clock kept ticking. And the Lakers kept fighting, drawing enough charges, grabbing enough rebounds, scoring enough (barely) to beat Minnesota, 94-85 on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
There was the timeout in the middle of the third quarter after Minnesota cut the Lakers’ lead to 11, with Lakers coach JJ Redick rage-walking and f-bombing away from and back to his team’s bench.
“It’s not something that I’d want to do. It’s not something I’m more than comfortable doing,” Redick said. “But I think tonight it was just more about getting that that urgency button switched back on.”
The switch flipped back on and the Lakers scored the next nine points.
Later in the fourth quarter, again, as the Lakers wore down and the Timberwolves chopped at their lead, Redick’s teams did just enough. Reaves scooted past Rudy Gobert for a big lay-in. James stripped Edwards, flipping a Minnesota transition chance into a bucket for the Lakers. Reaves sealed it by stopping another fast break by taking a charge, the Lakers finding ways to win even as they scored just 13 points in the final quarter.
According to StatMuse, the 13 points are the third fewest scored by a team in the fourth quarter of a playoff win since at least 2015.
Game 3 is Friday in Minneapolis.
“We could still be better offensively. I thought at times we were very sharp. But at times, we weren’t,” James said. “I think we could do a better job on the offensive end, but we’re going to continue to get better, continue to watch the film, see ways we can kinda break down the defense and continue to get good looks. I thought we had some great looks tonight. I know a lot of my shots in the fourth quarter were great looks that just didn’t go. If we can continue to get great looks like that, I think we believe in our percentages. But we gotta continue to work the habits.”
If Game 1 showed that the Lakers’ standing as heavy favorites in the series was wrong, Game 2 showed that whatever comes next might leave scars.
After Redick challenged his team to meet Minnesota’s intensity and physicality, the teams ripped and reached and held and hammered while they played like each possession would determine who wins and who loses.
The all-capital, bolded-letter story from the first quarter of the Lakers’ playoff opener Saturday was Luka Doncic showing why he’s one of the NBA’s most gifted difference-makers. He can be a one-man show, too hard for any player to stop, too skilled to be denied.
But it was singular.
The Lakers’ excellence in this series? It needed to be plural.
The playoffs would demand more than Doncic getting buckets. They would require James cutting sharply into the paint to create extra space. The Lakers would need Reaves to fight like hell for every step on the defensive end of the court.
It doesn’t work when it’s just the other way. It didn’t work when it was that way in Game 1.
So Tuesday night, facing the first unofficial “must-win” of the playoffs, the Lakers played in unison early on, even if Doncic was the only one really hitting shots.
“We did the same game plan. We didn’t really change much,” Doncic said. “It was just a question of if we were gonna be more physical or not. And I think we showed that. And we were there for 48 minutes. We got up big in the first quarter. We learned from the last game. And we just stuck to it.”
And while Doncic was able to create the kind of mismatch advantages he’ll be able to utilize against anyone, the Lakers suddenly found themselves stifled by Minnesota’s defense.
Doncic finished with 31 points, James had 21 and Reaves scored 16, but the Lakers shot just 20.7% from three-point range. Luckily, Minnesota wasn’t any better, getting 42 combined points from Julius Randle and Edwards but not more than nine from anyone else.
It was the Lakers’ defense, intensity and effort that built their big lead, and ultimately allowed them to beat the clock to hang on to it.
“We were physical,” Redick said. “The playoffs require a different level.”
The Lakers got there — and stayed there long enough.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
