Game 1 did not go according to plan for the Los Angeles Lakers and head coach JJ Redick as they gave up their home-court advantage by losing 117-95 to the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was a game where Luka Doncic seemingly was the only player to get going offensively with 37 points.
Unfortunately, Minnesota’s hot shooting performance truly did L.A. in, as they could not keep up. While it could be written off as a one-off, most of these looks were wide open due to the Lakers’ over-helping.
While the Lakers’ defense was a concern, their offense could not get any sort of rhythm. Credit to the Timberwolves, as they forced a ton of isolations, and Doncic only finished with one assist in 40 minutes. The Slovenian star acknowledged that he needs to do more playmaking.
“I try to set the tone but obviously one assist, that’s not good enough for me,” Doncic admitted.
Minnesota is arguably the biggest team in the Western Conference, which presents problems for L.A. and its small-ball lineups. That length clearly bothered the Lakers and Redick acknowledged their defensive coverages hindered other players from getting involved.
“A lot of it was the coverage scheme they had,” Redick said. “Not really playing [Rudy] Gobert his normal minutes and then some late reds with him when he wasn’t in coverage, and they had their one through five switching. So just in terms of like the two on the basketball, blitzes, 4- on-3s. I think that was expected on our side. Again, we’ll look at the film and see what can be done.”
Game 1 does not tell an entire story, but it’s obviously not the ideal start to get blown out at home. Playoff basketball tends to slow down and L.A. needs to rely on finishing defensive possessions with a rebound to get out and run, resulting in easy looks.
Once players like Austin Reaves and LeBron James see a few shots go in, that opens up the entire offense. Adjustments are bound to be made to counter Minnesota’s defense, and hopefully it results in Reaves and James joining the party with Doncic.
JJ Redick: Lakers didn’t respond to Timberwolves’ physicality in Game 1 loss
Saturday night was disappointing given the Lakers were hosting a first round series for the first time since 2012 and Luka Doncic was making his L.A. playoff debut. One could attribute this loss to the Timberwolves’ physicality defensively and JJ Redick believes that his team did not respond well to that.
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