Lakers fans should be happy they’re in the playoffs again, but that wasn’t a great performance. The Los Angeles Lakers have booked a place back into the playoffs as they barely managed beat a disjointed Minnesota Timberwolves 108-102 in overtime.
I get if LA fans are rejoicing right now about making the playoffs after last year’s horrible results, but this team won’t get far if they play like that against the Grizzlies.
The Los Angeles Lakers were able to thwart off an undermanned and frankly disjointed Timberwolves team as they won 108-102 in overtime, giving them a guaranteed 7th seeding in the upcoming playoffs as they’re now going to face the 2nd seeded Grizzlies. Yet, even though the Lakers won, it was far from a vintage performance as nearly every single one of the trade deadline assets had their worst games in a Lakers uniform to date.
I really can’t believe how horrible all of the deadline acquisitions played yesterday as D’Angelo Russell (2 PTS, 3 REB, 8 AST), Jared Vanderbilt (o PTS, 3 REB, 1 AST), Malik Beasly (5 PTS, 1 REB, 0 AST), and Rui Hachimura (12 PTS, 2 REB, 1 AST) all finished with 12 points or less, while Russell, Vanderbilt, and Beasly finished the game with 5 or fewer points.
Hell, Vanderbilt and Russell, who both started the game, had a combined stat line of 2 PTS, 6 REB, and 9 AST.
That’s awful!
Lakers fans better be on their hands and feet praying at the alters of LeBron James (30 PTS, 10 REB, 6 AST, 1 STL, 2 BLK) and Anthony Davis (24 PTS, 15 REB, 4 AST, 2 STL, 3 BLK) right now as the pair not only amounted for 50% of all Lakers’ points scored in the five quarters (well, more like 4 and a half) of play, but they also tallied 58% of all made FG attempts (22/38) and 30% of all made 3-point FG attempts (3/10).
And, to go along with their combined 3 steals and 5 blocks performance, the duo essentially were the only ones clicking on both sides of the court for LA. Yes, Dennis Schröder had a monster game with 21 PTS, 4 REB, 4 AST, 1 STL, and a huge 3-point shot that should have won the game with 1.4 seconds left in overtime, but it was AD and King James that won the day for Los Angeles.
Aside from Schröder and maybe Austin Reaves (who had a decent game with 12 PTS, 6 REB, 3 AST, but shot 4-13 from the field), nobody on the Lakers could shoot. In fact, that was the case for both teams!
Watching last night’s game felt like I tuned into a 3-hour documentary on how bricks are made as the Lakers and Timberwolves both shot below 44% from the field (Lakers: 41.3%; Timberwolves: 43.4%), the Lakers shot below 33% from beyond the arc (32.3% to be exact), and both teams combined for 40 turnovers (Lakers: 20; Timberwolves: 20).
Anthony Edwards (9 PTS, 8 REB, 5 AST, 1 STL, 3 BLK) lost all his confidence as he went 3-17 from the field and 0-9 from the 3-point line, iron-jaw (well, more like iron-chest) Kyle Anderson (12 PTS, 5 REB, 12 AST) went 5-14 from the field and just 2-5 from the 3-point line, D’Angelo Russell went 1-9 from the field and 0-4 from the arc, and Austin Reaves went 4-13 from the field and 1-5 from the 3-point line.
If Karl-Anthony Towns (24 PTS, 11 REB, 5 AST) was a little more dominate in the offensive paint or Tauern Prince (14 PTS, 3 REB, 0 AST, 3 STL) hit that 3-point attempt to tie the game at 105 at the end of overtime, the Timberwolves, a team that just had one player get injured by punching his hand off a concrete wall and the other suspended for punching a teammate, would have gone on to win this game.
That’s how dreadful the Lakers’ shooting was.
Nevertheless, I highly doubt the Lakers will beat the Grizzlies in the next round as Memphis has more firepower and is a much younger, hungrier team, but they definitely won’t stand a chance if they put up a shooting performance like we saw last night. They need to be lethal to upset the second-best team in the Western Conference, which is something no one has called LA this season.
As for the Timberwolves, I’m not so sure they’ll beat the Pelicans/Thunder in the next Play-In game, let alone Nikola Jokić’s 1st-seeded Denver Nuggets in the First Round. They’ll be fortunate to steal a single game against the Nuggets if they are able to beat off the 9th or 10th seeded challengers.
At the end of the day, this was just a battle between two sub-par teams won by the team that didn’t have its players make boneheaded decisions prior to tip-off.
PS: I have to give a shoutout to Mike Conley. He was the definition of an ice-cold killer with those three made free throws to send the game to overtime.
Images Source: Featured Image:
