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MINNEAPOLIS — After a midseason loss to the Clippers, JJ Redick and LeBron James sounded a bit of an alarm, both coach and leader saying the Lakers didn’t have the luxury to just be pretty good.
The Lakers, if they wanted to win tough games, needed to be great.
“It’s just, we don’t have a huge margin for error,” Redick said.
“That’s how our team is constructed,” James said. “We don’t have room for error.”
Coach JJ Redick has referred to it multiple times regarding role players, but stars such as LeBron James and Luka Doncic know doing the dirty work leads to winning.
But in a single phone call, when the Dallas Mavericks agreed to a blockbuster trade, the Lakers got the ultimate margin mover in Luka Doncic.
Friday night in Minneapolis, that cushion came crashing in, Doncic far from himself because of an illness that had him working out on the court an hour before the game.
With Doncic off, the mistakes took on more weight. The free throws that rattled out? Bruising. The offensive rebounds given up? Crushing. The lapses in attention that led to turnovers? Back-breaking.
The Lakers weren’t good enough, losing 116-104 to the Timberwolves in a Game 3 they had chances to win before Minnesota slammed the door to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round playoff series.
“In the postseason, obviously you’re not gonna play a perfect game,” James said. “But the more that you make mistakes on top of mistakes on top of mistakes, things that can be controlled, then it’s not gonna give you an opportunity to be in the best possible chance to win.”
The Lakers committed 19 turnovers. They gave up nine offensive rebounds. Minnesota took 13 more shots and scored 10 more points in transition.
“Really hard to win a basketball game in that scenario,” Redick said of the possession disparity.
Doncic, a monster in the first quarter of the first two games of the series, looked badly uncomfortable, starting one for six from the field.
After he checked out for the first time, he put on his warmup jacket and pulled the hood onto his head. He wasn’t able to make it out of the locker room at halftime and missed the first 50 seconds of the third quarter, checking back in with a shirt on under his uniform.
He scored 17 points on six-for-16 shooting but never could create the kinds of advantages that have given the Lakers room to maneuver.
“He was fighting, trying to be there for us,” forward Dorian Finney-Smith said. “I didn’t think he was going to come out second half.”
James, though, was sublime. Still stimulated by the chance to silence a road playoff crowd, he played with his most energy all series. He pointed over at the bench after he scored on a midrange jumper when the Lakers executed a play called for him early. He held his three-point celebration in the fourth quarter when he shot the Lakers back into the game. He flew for rebounds and moved his feet on defense in a 38-point, 41-minute game. It was the most points scored in a playoff game by a player over 40.
“He’s moving better,” Redick said. “He seems like he’s getting healthier by the day.”
Austin Reaves, who struggled shooting in Game 2, hit big shots, keeping the Lakers in it despite the mistakes rapidly mounting and making things tougher. He finished with 20 points.
Bill Plaschke writes the Lakers showed their character, fighting for a Game 2 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
The most fatal wounds were caused by the turnovers. They ranged from multiple 24-second violations to lost rebounds to a ball squirting through James’ hands. One even came when Minnesota Rudy Gobert, Doncic’s favorite target, poked the ball loose leading to a Jaden McDaniels layup.
Twenty-four of McDaniels’ 30 points came in the paint.
“He had 30 and he was aggressive from the start to the finish,” James said. “Can’t remember the last time he took over 20 shots.”
While the mistakes the Lakers made were brutal, the things they couldn’t control hurt too. Their lack of rim protection got badly exploited by McDaniels, who consistently went over their defense.
Jaxson Hayes, the Lakers’ starting center, played less than nine minutes, the Lakers being outscored by 13 when he played.
The combination of the shrunken margins put the Lakers’ season a step closer to conclusion, the team now needing to steal a win Sunday in the shortest turnaround in the series.
Despite being sick, Doncic still played 40 minutes. Reaves played 41. They’ll need to recapture their energy from Game 2 on light rest to avoid facing elimination in Game 5.
“We got to control the controllables,” James said. “And I don’t think we did that tonight obviously. Nineteen turnovers on the road is not gonna be a good ingredient for winning. Giving up [28] points off those turnovers — they had 20-plus points in transition as well. We gotta control the controllables and if we do, we give ourselves chance to win.”
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