Even with Luka Dončić and LeBron James, the lakeers’ margin remains thin

LOS Angeles – The words used by Lakers to describe their loss of playoffs from match 1 to the Minnesota Timberwolves were digestible, easy to take and simple.

“Physics”, as in the Timberwolves was the most decisive group, without fear of the framework of the playoffs, less concerning that it was the beginnings in the eliminatory series of Luka Dončić as a great Lakers.

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“Bad” … Well, it was Austin Reaves speaking of his disastrous first half, although he could have talked about the performance of his team as a whole.

These things and much more were obvious like the Timberwolves of Minnesota did to the Lakers what they did in Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns last year, and what they did to Denver Nuggets and Nikola Jokić a tour later: steal the opening of the series quite easily, 117-95, in Crypto.com Arena on Saturday evening.

Dončić impressed 37 points and eight rebounds, but did not succeed in a single pass and was exploited defensively.

The Lakers were the team at home to offer a home advantage on the day of opening the playoffs, and they were squarely shocked by the Timberwolves, who survived a very early storm to hit the Lakers in the mouths in the last three quarters, which surmounted them with 29 points.

It was clear that the Lakers were preparing for a type of game to be played, and the Timberwolves intended to overthrow the competition on his head after the first minutes. JJ Redick was impressive during his first year as a chief coach, inaugurating the Lakers through a seismic trade and implementing a defense which was the best in the League for a section, but he could not predict what was going to happen on Saturday.

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“This does not mean that our guys were not ready to resist basketball matches in the playoffs,” said Redick. “We were mentally ready, I thought that our mind was right, even when they went shopping, our stories were great. I’m not sure that physically, we were ready if it made sense.

“When they started with a lot of push and physics, we just didn’t answer.”

It looks like the ultimate confrontation of the Lakers trying to force the Timberwolves to play their game – by putting Rudy Gobert in uncomfortable positions, then on the bench, to cancel his on -board protection.

But this then gives up the speed of the Timberwolves if the Lakers do not play with the strength with which they have played since Dončić’s trade lacks size, they generally compensated in aggressiveness.

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They met their match, then some in match 1.

The Timberwolves blitzé 3, hitting a franchise record in 21 triple playoffs to a 50%clip. Top Reserve Naz Reid made six – one of its career summit in playoffs – while Jaden McDaniels struck his three attempts.

Conversely, the Lakers went next to Nada from their bench – Dorian Finney -Smith, Gabe Vincent and Jarred Vanderbilt have gathered a basket each, although the value of Vanderbilt is much more expected from the defensive than in attack.

But zoom out, nothing went well for the Lakers.

It was as if they expected that Anthony Edwards played an immature game, dominates the ball and isolates the shooting attempts. But he did exactly the opposite, representing nine of the 29 assists of the Timberwolves to accompany 22 points and eight rebounds. He caught cramps in the second half and the Lakers had a race with him in the locker room, but from his return, things settled quite easily.

“The start of their race was the transition and the second chance,” said Redick. “I think that in terms of semi-terrain diagrams, we will take a look and see what we want to modify. It is difficult to overcome, especially when a team shoots the way they drew. ”

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All year round, and especially in recent weeks, there are therefore many discussions on the little separation between the eliminatory teams not residing in Oklahoma City. The Lakers have finished better than anyone in large part due to the power of the stars at the top and is carried out by emerging as a third ideal option which could attack the lower defenders.

But if there were weaknesses in the defense of the Timberwolves, the Lakers could not locate them. In some respects, the Timberwolves are perfectly positioned to defend the perimeter team with so many long and varied athletes that do not need a lot of help.

So, without defense compromised, the movement of the ball slowed down while crawling, even after the big first quarter of Dončić. The Timberwolves have shown discipline and did not react excessively to the Dončić dam.

They looked around and saw LeBron James miss his first four shots and Reaves seems completely outside of this way, because he had only one basket in the first half. James finished the competition with 19 points, five rebounds and three assists – a radical change compared to its post -dončić commercial production, with an average of 25.1 points, 8.2 rebounds and 6.8 assists.

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You wonder if James, who at his age can always manipulate the rhythm and the structure of the game as well as anyone, has taken too many rear sieges in Dončić, wanting him to be comfortable in this context and has lost his own rhythm.

And if that is indeed the case, we would expect that a much more aggressive James came Tuesday evening after two days of rest in what will surely be a desperate environment for these Lakers.

But during the Timberwolves race, the realization became clear: there is not much difference between these two teams, just as there is not much between the Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Clippers, who organized a thriller in prolongation in Denver earlier in the day.

The margins are where these series will be won or lost, and the Lakers had nothing to offer in this category. Offensive rebounds have led to moving 3 points for Minnesota. Lakers turnover led to streams and 3S in transition.

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“We have to do a better job to control controls,” said James. “Abandon the 3 fast break points, the second chance points are things that we can control.”

The Timberwolves have even resisted Julius Randle commits seven of their 10 reversals-perhaps they know that Randle is a tour or treatment in this space, so they play an even more installed floor game.

The Lakers played from behind for the last 36 minutes, giving the crowd of hope several times. But it was like preparing for a storm that never came, watching the sky darken but realizing that the day would do nothing more than a breeze as opposed to thunder and lightning that rains.

Timberwolves are not a perfect team, but neither is Lakers. It does not seem likely that the Lakers will be so anemic again, pull 39.8% of the soil and 36.6% on a beach of 3 points.

But that shows that their margin of error is still thin, even with Dončić and James like two basketball geniuses. Who knows if his best absolute will be required to beat the Timberwolves, but that certainly cannot be that.