For the first time since the 2010-11 season, the Los Angeles Lakers are hosting a playoff series. They technically earned home-court advantage in 2019-20, but because of COVID, they played that entire playoff run in Orlando. On Saturday night, the three-seed Lakers will face off against the six-seed Minnesota Timberwolves – a matchup Lakers fans should like, with a couple disclaimers.
The NBA league office will probably like this series quite a bit, too, as Anthony Edwards will get to bring his star power to a Lakers playoffs stage that features LeBron James and Luka Doncic. Austin Reaves should probably be included in this group, too, as he seems poised to fully break out this spring.
The keys for this series start with how the Lakers will defend Edwards and what the Wolves have planned for dealing with that three-headed offensive monster in Doncic, James, and Reaves. LA should have the mathematical advantage given how they’ve focused on 3s since trading Anthony Davis for Doncic, but that can swing back somewhat to Minnesota depending on how the possession battle goes.
Bottom line: This is a fascinating series that pits a more traditional team built on size and one player’s superstardom against a more modern approach based on spacing, versatility, and ball movement, plus stars. It seems like the Lakers should win this fairly comfortably, but let’s see how they can get there.
Anthony Edwards vs. the Lakers’ star-focused defense
April usually marks the time when all homeowners spray extensively around their houses to get out ahead of the ant problem. JJ Redick takes a similar approach when it comes to offenses headed up by a single engine. He enlists guys like James, Dorian Finney-Smith, Rui Hachimura, or Jarred Vanderbilt to do the work early and make sure Ant is never comfortable; then he’ll use whoever is guarding lesser shooters like Gobert, Jaden McDaniels, or Julius Randle to shade into driving lanes to wall off the paint.
One issue that has plagued the Lakers at various points this season has been teams setting screens and getting the switches they prefer, rather than the Lakers dictating the terms of possessions. If Minnesota is able to get Edwards away from Vanderbilt, Finney-Smith, or Hachimura and into space with Reaves or Gabe Vincent guarding him, he’ll have such an athleticism and size advantage that the Lakers will merely have to hope he misses.
Generally speaking, if Edwards is able to operate in isolation without proper help at least shaded toward him, the Lakers are in trouble. That said, if the Lakers are able to take the ball out of Edwards’ hands at all, Minnesota simply doesn’t have another offensive engine to pick up the slack.
Another concern coming into the series is Minnesota’s shooting and, specifically, how great Edwards has become from deep. He led the NBA in makes this season and did so at an astonishing 39.5% clip. It almost doesn’t matter what kind of defense the Lakers play if Edwards just rises above it and knocks down enough 3s. Beyond Edwards, Minnesota does boast a decent number of capable 3-point shooters. Mike Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Naz Reid, and Donte DiVincenzo all hit at least 37.9% of their 3s on decent volume.
If Minnesota’s shooters keep the Lakers even more honest in guarding Edwards, this series could become quite a bit closer.
The possession battle
Minnesota boasts the biggest frontline rotation in the Western Conference. The Lakers are heading into the series with Jaxson Hayes as their lone traditionally-sized center. A defensive possession isn’t over until you secure the rebound, and if Minnesota decides to sell out to grab as many offensive boards as possible, that could change the math in the series.
Interestingly, despite Minnesota’s size up front, they were in the middle of the pack in terms of offensive rebounds per game. So, if rebounding does become a focus for the Wolves, it would signal a bit of a shift from their regular season approach, which can lead to an adjustment period.
Taking things a step further, if the Lakers stumble into any turnover issues and the Wolves hammer them on the glass, then the math gets pretty tricky, and the Lakers would have to make up that gap with better-than-normal shooting. They’re obviously capable of that because of how well Doncic, James, and Reaves create open looks from deep, but these teams are too evenly matched from deep to get into a shooting match.
Look for the Lakers to swarm the defensive glass, apply pressure to hopefully generate turnovers, and also value the ball when they have it. If they can do those three things, they’ll have a very good chance in this series.
What about Minnesota’s defense?
The Lakers have generally struggled against teams that boast multiple big, athletic defensive wings. Most teams do. Minnesota finished the season ranked sixth in defensive rating, giving up 110.8 points per 100 possessions. They’re a big, athletic, switchy team on the perimeter, with one of the game’s best anchors operating as their last line of defense. Only the Houston Rockets and Orlando Magic gave up fewer 3s per game than Minnesota, and teams shot sixth-worst from deep against their defense.
Minnesota also does a good job keeping teams out of transition, as well, something that has at times aided the Lakers’ offense when they got stagnant in the half-court.
Between DiVincenzo, Alexander-Walker, McDaniels, and Edwards, Minnesota has the perimeter defenders to consistently bother Doncic, James, and Reaves, and if the Lakers try running pick-and-roll against two of those defenders, Minnesota can just switch and maintain a decent matchup against the Lakers’ three primary creators.
Where Minnesota will get into trouble is when the Lakers use whoever Gobert, Randle, Conley, and Reid are guarding to set screens, and Doncic, James, and Reaves can pick on those players in space. In last year’s Western Conference Finals, Doncic and Kyrie Irving absolutely torched Minnesota’s defense with this approach, so look for much of the same in this matchup.
48 minutes of matchup hunting won’t do, either, though. The Lakers are going to have to rely on other approaches over the course of the series. They’ll have to attack Minnesota in transition off of stops and *gasp* run organized sets to compound the skillsets of their three best players at times, too.
Shooting around Luka Doncic, LeBron James
As is often the case in modern basketball, this series really might just boil down to which team’s role players knock down their open 3s.
The Lakers are going to sell out to defend Edwards. The Wolves are going to sell out to defend Doncic, James, and Reaves. It’s going to come down to guys like Hachimura, Finney-Smith, and Vincent hitting their open 3s at a higher rate than Conley, Alexander-Walker, McDaniels, Reid, and DiVincenzo. This is where having home-court advantage is such a key, as role players tend to shoot better in front of their home crowd.
Lakers vs. Timberwolves prediction
Minnesota definitely has the means to make this a very competitive series. Edwards is a legit superstar who raises his game in the postseason, and the Timberwolves have enough shooting to keep the game relatively open for him. They also have the defense to bother James, Doncic, and Reaves, especially if the Lakers’ role players aren’t hitting their open 3s. All that said, Doncic had his way with a better version of this Wolves team last year with less help on his team.
Everything you could say about Edwards, you can say even louder about Doncic, and then beyond him, Minnesota is going to have to figure out what to do with James as well. Then, given all the attention spent on those two, that might leave Reaves unattended at times on the weak side, and he’s been incredible since Doncic arrived. There are definitely swing factors, but this feels like a comfortable series for the Lakers.
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