L.A. Lakers Need Overtime to Dispatch Shorthanded Minnesota Timberwolves in Play-In Tournament
Doug Collins--four-time NBA All-Star, long-time NBA coach, and first-rate basketball commentator--used to say that you can tell a lot about a team by how that team reacts after a win. Did the team expect to win and does the team expect to do more, or is the team too excited about a win that should be considered routine?
The L.A. Lakers have two players selected to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team. The franchise prides itself on winning championships and having championship expectations. Being in the Play-In Tournament is an embarrassment for such a franchise, not an accomplishment, and winning a Play-In Tournament game should be considered a routine first step toward the achievement of the franchise's annual goal of capturing a championship.
The 2023 Lakers celebrated a 108-102 overtime Play-In Tournament game win versus the shorthanded 42-40 Minnesota Timberwolves as if they had beaten the archrival Boston Celtics in game seven of the NBA Finals.
The Timberwolves were in control for most of the game and led by as many as 15 points, but they have earned their reputation of not having an exceptionally high collective basketball IQ--and they confirmed that reputation by quite literally throwing the game away, committing six fourth quarter turnovers while shooting just 3-15 from the field in the final stanza.
If you close your eyes and listen carefully, you can hear the media members tapping out stories on their keyboards about how great the Lakers are, and how much they have turned things around since getting rid of Russell Westbrook.
Such stories are fairy tales.
I specialize in non-fiction, so let's take a non-fiction look at this game and at this Lakers team.
When the Lakers do well, the basis for their success is LeBron James and Anthony Davis attacking the paint on offense and protecting the paint on defense. James finished with a game-high 30 points on 12-21 field goal shooting. He added 10 rebounds and six assists. Davis lived in the paint, scoring 24 points on 10-19 field goal shooting while grabbing a game-high 15 rebounds, including nine offensive rebounds. Davis had three blocked shots and two steals. Dennis Schroder added 21 points off of the bench; he had a game-high +22 plus/minus number, and he made essential contributions to this win. The Lakers outrebounded the Timberwolves 48-37 while outscoring the Timberwolves in the paint 54-36. Supposedly, the Lakers' early season problems were caused by turnovers and poor three point shooting--both of which were blamed on Westbrook--but the Lakers won this game despite committing 21 turnovers (Davis and James led the way with five turnovers apiece) and despite shooting .323 from three point range.
I will repeat, for those who are sitting in the back or are hard of hearing: the formula for Lakers' success involves attacking the paint and defending the paint. It is obviously helpful to make three pointers and not turn the ball over, but those things are not essential: the Lakers' "Bubble" championship team in 2020 ranked 22nd in the NBA in turnovers, 23rd in three pointers made, and 21st in three point shooting percentage.
The bottom line about the Lakers has been the same ever since James joined the team and recruited Davis: when James and Davis play in the paint, the Lakers have a great chance to win. When James and Davis do not play in the paint--or do not play at all--the Lakers are in trouble.
James had a very interesting performance. The Lakers trailed most of the way, and they trailed by 11 at halftime. Early in the second half, James had already scored 19 points on 8-13 field goal shooting, but the Lakers trailed 65-55 and he had a -20 plus/minus number, by far the worst of any player for either team. James finished with a -14 plus/minus number, the worst for any Laker. It's almost like James was not sure if the Lakers would win so he padded his stats in the early going to support the narrative that Lakers' losses are not his fault (even in games when the team is hemorrhaging points while he is on the court).
The Lakers brought in some legendary big game performers to replace Westbrook. We have been hearing for weeks about how much depth the Lakers have, and how many "lasers" (great outside shooters) the Lakers have. Let's take a look at how the Lakers' much-praised new players did in a home Play-In Tournament game against a depleted Minnesota team:
D'Angelo Russell: two points on 1-9 field goal shooting, eight assists. He is such an impactful player that Coach Darvin Ham played him for 20 seconds in the fourth quarter and 11 seconds in overtime. Yes, playoff D'Angelo is in full effect (his career playoff field goal percentage is .349).
Jarred Vanderbilt: zero points on 0-2 field goal shooting, and a wonderful -12 plus/minus number.
Malik Beasley: five points on 2-3 field goal shooting.
For those of you scoring at home, Westbrook's replacements totaled seven points on 3-14 field goal shooting. "Lasers," indeed. It will be fascinating to watch those lasers firing away against the Memphis Grizzlies, who the Lakers will face in the first round of the playoffs.
Fortunately for the Lakers, all they had to do to survive the Play-In Tournament was beat a mediocre Minnesota team that is focused on self-destruction: starting center Rudy Gobert earned a suspension for this game after punching teammate Kyle Anderson, elite wing defender Jaden McDaniels ended his season after breaking his hand by punching a wall during the team's last regular season game, and the players who did not exile themselves from the lineup seemed incapable of making a sensible play during the game's final 17 minutes: in the fourth quarter and overtime, the Timberwolves shot 5-23 from the field (.217) while committing nine turnovers.
The Timberwolves did their best to give away the game in regulation, but the Lakers kept giving it back; the Lakers 5-18 from the field in the fourth quarter while committing five turnovers. Yes, Play-In Tournament basketball is fantastic! With the Lakers leading 98-95, Davis fouled Mike Conley on a three point shot with .1 seconds remaining. Conley drained three free throws to send the game to overtime. Conley is a class act, and it was nice to see him come through in a clutch moment. He had an excellent game overall, finishing with 23 points on 7-11 field goal shooting while adding four assists and four rebounds. Unfortunately, his heroics meant that we had to suffer through five more minutes of mediocre basketball. The Lakers had three turnovers and three field goals during the extra session, but they outscored the Timberwolves 10-4.
The Timberwolves will get one more chance to qualify for the playoffs; they will have a home game against the winner of the New Orleans-Oklahoma City Play-In Tournament game. It will be interesting to see how the Timberwolves react to Gobert's return, and it will also be interesting to see how Karl Anthony-Towns and Anthony Edwards perform. Anthony-Towns led the Timberwolves in scoring (24 points) and rebounds (11), and he was the only Minnesota player with a positive plus/minus number (+18)--but during the 12 minutes that he sat out due to foul trouble the Lakers outscored the Timberwolves by 24 points! Edwards, as the old saying goes, could not hit the broadside of a barn with a bass fiddle, finishing with nine points on 3-17 field goal shooting.
Be on the lookout for fairy tales about how everything negative for the Lakers this season was Westbrook's fault, and how the Lakers are a big threat to win the championship, and how the Timberwolves could be dangerous if they make the playoffs.
Labels: Anthony Davis, Anthony Edwards, Dennis Schroder, Karl-Anthony Towns, L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Mike Conley, Minnesota Timberwolves
posted by David Friedman @ 2:38 AM
7 Comments:
Twolves home game will be against WINNER of 9/10 game (2d to last paragraph)
--J
J:
Correct!
All of these Play-In Tournament teams look like losers to me :)
Eric:
Thank you for your kind words, and for sharing those YouTube clips.
I don't bash Harden. I just tell the truth about him, and his fans think that is bashing him.
even the (likely) winners are hard to root for. Giannis' attempted miss to get a triple-double (later rescinded) wouldn't bother me if he were just a journeyman; but with his elevated stature (former MVP, Finals MVP, hundreds of millions of $, first ballot HoFer upon eligibility) comes a much higher standard -- I can't get past it for the time being. ditto for Tatum's absurd All-Star game "record" chasing (not quite the player Giannis is, but still has all the $ in the world and lots of stature in NBA). Kawhi with his load mgmt. KD abandoning the Nets that paid him $40+m for a year of rehab. Curry with his squat (fake defecating) in the Finals years ago -- though that now seems less troublesome than the other examples I've listed). maybe Jokic is okay? but, for the most part, the players, along with the 3-pt devolution, have ruined the product for me.
I'd like to see any of these teams play the Bad Boy Pistons, knock the chip off their shoulders and then some. (and I wasn't even a fan of those Pistons)
--J
J:
I can give Giannis a pass because this attempted triple double fiasco is an aberration for him.
I can't blame Tatum for trying to score if no one is trying to guard him. The "record" is meaningless and the ASG is a farce now, but Tatum's play did not stand out to me as worse than anyone else's.
Kawhi is a strange case. He plays hard and keeps his mouth shut, but all of the load management is a bit much.
I don't like it when players ask out before their contracts are up. Durant has done this, as have many others.
Curry celebrates too much, but that is true of almost every star today (other than Kawhi).
I haven't seen Jokic do anything off-kilter.
I hope that we are just in a bad cycle and that things will turn back around.
You always have stated the truth about Harden for more than a decade now. I recall all of your truthful posts. I would also like to state on record that I am not a fan of his by any means; I thoroughly have enjoyed reading the objective commentary you have provided of his epic playoff disasters - just too many episodes to count with both hands at this point.
Eric:
Death, taxes, and James Harden choking in the playoffs are perhaps the only certainties in life!
I love Jalen Rose's line about Harden's playoff field goal numbers--Rose said that they look like concert tour dates, with numbers like 4/17, 5/20, etc.
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