Rumors of the Los Angeles Lakers’ demise have been greatly exaggerated. After getting blown off of the floor in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Lakers stormed back to even things up 1-1 with a 94-85 victory on their home floor on Tuesday night. The series shifts back to Minnesota on Friday for Game 3. The Timberwolves have home-court advantage in the series, but the Lakers have the momentum that comes from having won their most recent game.
Game 1, at this point, seems like a throwaway. Minnesota made every shot. The Lakers came out lifeless. They were overwhelmed by Minnesota’s physicality. It shouldn’t be discounted entirely, because blowouts count, too. But Game 2 probably gave us a more accurate representation of what we can expect in this series.
So what are the major takeaways from Tuesday’s victory for the Lakers? Three stand out.
Limiting 3-pointers is everything
How did the Timberwolves win Game 1? Shooting 21 of 42 on 3s made a big difference. Sometimes teams make half of their 3s. Shooting is subject to quite a bit of variance. What was most concerning was the volume (42 attempts) and the ease of the shots involved. Of those 42 attempts, 27 were considered wide-open, according to NBA.com tracking data. That means in Game 2, the Lakers limited the Timberwolves to fewer total 3-point attempts (25) than they had wide-open looks in Game 1 (27).
So what changed? Well, the Lakers played harder in Game 2, and effort does mean quite a bit defensively. But they also tweaked their defensive scheme to emphasize those 3-pointers more. In Game 1, the Lakers threw quite a bit of help at Anthony Edwards. The idea there was that they lack a single one-on-one defender who can contain Minnesota’s All-Star guard, but by putting extra bodies in his way, they’d force the ball out of his hands and into those of his teammates, many of whom are shaky shooters. Well, those shaky shooters made all of their shots in Game 1.
So for Game 2, the Lakers dialed back the help. Instead, they switched more, giving Edwards and Julius Randle enough room to combine for 52 points… but limiting the rest of the team to just 32 because there were no open 3-pointers or easy cuts to the basket available. The strategy worked as the Wolves were held to a season-low 85 points. Now it’s up to Minnesota to respond.
The (switch) hunt is on
Your enduring memory of Game 2 is probably going to be Rudy Gobert defending on the perimeter. The Lakers made a point of hunting him quite a bit. Obviously, Dončić has had quite a bit of success doing this in the past. LeBron James got in on the fun a bit in the first half. Austin Reaves followed in the second. There were at least half a dozen distinct, clippable moments where it looked as though Gobert got torched.
But look at the scoreboard. The Lakers scored 94 points. They hunted Gobert some in Game 1 as well and scored just 95. Some of this is bad 3-point shooting. The Lakers went 6 of 29 from deep in Game 2. That should improve, especially if the Lakers continue to lean into lineups featuring neither Jaxson Hayes nor Jarred Vanderbilt. But ultimately, the Lakers didn’t exactly run great offense. They just won the game.
Gobert himself predicted a version of this before the series even began. “Obviously they’ve seen that clip of the stepback a thousand times. So did I,” Gobert said before the series. “That’s one clip amongst a lot of other defensive possessions. I know a lot of people don’t like the numbers, but over a long period of time, the numbers speak more than the eye test… Let’s see what happens over the course of hundreds and hundreds of possessions.”
It’s too early to draw a conclusion here. Shooting variance is going to swing numbers in such a small sample pretty wildly. But defense just hasn’t been the problem for Minnesota in this series. They won Game 1 because they scored and they lost Game 2 because they didn’t.
What’s up with LeBron?
James scored 19 points in Game 1. He scored 19 points in Game 2. James getting held below 20 points in a playoff game is exceedingly rare. In his Lakers tenure, it had happened only five times before this series, and several of those games were blowouts that James didn’t need to finish. That was the case in Game 1, a loss, but he played 40 minutes in Game 2 and just generally did not look like himself for most of the night.
Remember, James hurt his groin in an early-March loss to Boston. He’s averaged just 21.7 points per game since. He’s getting to the line less. He’s making fewer 3s. He looks less explosive. To some extent, that’s affecting him on defense as well. James did a lot of things well in Game 2, but Randle scored 27 points and James was his primary defender. On multiple occasions late, he and Reaves failed to connect on lobs that, while not routine by any stretch of the imagination, were highlight dunks for James three months ago.
One of the benefits of having Dončić, and to a lesser extent, Reaves, is that the Lakers don’t have to depend on James quite as much to generate all of their offense as they had in the past. He contributed in other ways. His 11 rebounds were critical against a much bigger team. He’s still a legendary playmaker, and his basketball IQ and communication are essential to the sort of center-less defense the Lakers are playing.
But we came into this postseason thinking the Lakers might have two of the best 10 or so players in the league and possibly the two best players in this series. That hasn’t been the case so far. Moving forward, it’s not clear what version of LeBron the Lakers still have.