Coming off one of their best wins of the season against the New York Knicks, the Los Angeles Lakers faced another tough test on Tuesday when they took on the Minnesota Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena.
The Lakers got some unfortunate news before tipoff as LeBron James, Jaxson Hayes and Maxi Kleber were all ruled out. That left L.A. extremely shorthanded in the frontcourt, although that didn’t matter as they had an exceptional second half to come away with a 120-106 victory to improve to 40-25 on the year.
It was an ugly start for both teams, but especially the Lakers, as they took nearly five minutes to score. In that same time though, the Timberwolves only scored five points, so L.A. quickly took the lead after they got going a bit offensively.
While Luka Doncic hit a couple of shots in the first quarter, he was otherwise ice cold, just like basically everyone else. Ayo Dosunmu hit a midrange jumper to beat the first quarter buzzer, giving Minnesota a 21-16 lead.
With everyone else struggling, Deandre Ayton raised his aggression as he was grabbing every rebound and had three dunks early in the second. Donte DiVincenzo responded with a pair of 3-pointers to keep his team in front, however.
The Lakers missed their first 15 attempts from deep, but Doncic ended that drought when he returned to the game. He got going from there offensively, and then Rui Hachimura hit a 3 at the end of the half to tie it at 45 going into the locker room.
Doncic took a hard hit from DiVincenzo early in the third quarter and appeared to be in pain, but was ultimately able to stay in the game. That was big as he ripped off six straight points, while Austin Reaves started to get going to give the Lakers the lead.
In fact, after a three-point play and a four-point play by Reaves, L.A. had opened up a 15-point advantage.
Reaves and the Lakers’ hot third quarter continued as they were dominating in every facet of the game, continuing to extend their lead all the way up to 84-68 going into the fourth.
The Lakers’ offensive barrage continued in the fourth as Reaves had another four-point play and then a 3. At that point, the game was effectively out of reach as the Lakers took care of business to close out the impressive victory.
What’s next for the Lakers…
The Lakers will be back in action on Thursday night when they host the Chicago Bulls before welcoming the Denver Nuggets to town for a big matchup on Saturday.
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