Lakers score right now12/1/2023 He re-entered the game with roughly 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter. He got called for his first foul on a charge in the second quarter, and immediately committed a frustration foul on the other end. But the fouls themselves were simply unacceptable. It's not his fault that Naz Reid is hurt or Rudy Gobert got suspended. In fairness, Minnesota is desperately thin up front. In those 12 minutes or so, the Timberwolves were outscored by 26 points. He played only 24 minutes in last year's play-in win over the Clippers because of foul trouble, and in this game, the Timberwolves sat him for roughly 12 of the 53 total minutes played. The problem, yet again, was that Towns wasn't on the floor enough. When he was on the floor, he was incredible. Most of Minnesota's layups were a direct result of the space Towns generated. The Lakers mixed in different matchups and help, but when they doubled, he made great pass after great pass to set up teammates. Those numbers don't do justice to his impact. Here's the good: Towns finished the game with 24 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. Good Towns, bad Townsīoth of the following can be true: Karl-Anthony Towns was the only reason Minnesota nearly won this game … and Karl-Anthony Towns was also the biggest reason they lost. The Lakers were impregnable down the stretch of this game, and that was the difference. Davis is perhaps the NBA's best defender, and while James doesn't have it for entire games anymore, he's more than capable of playing elite defense for a single possession when necessary. Schroder tracked Minnesota's guards all over the floor. Jarred Vanderbilt is among the NBA's most versatile defenders, capable of guarding both Towns and Anthony Edwards at different points in the game. If the Lakers are going to seriously compete for a championship this season, this is going to be how they do it. This was the best possible group of offensive players the Timberwolves could have mustered. Their absence allowed the Timberwolves to start Taurean Prince, who shot 4 of 7 from 3-point range, and move Karl-Anthony Towns to center, where his shooting maximizes spacing. While they surely would have preferred to have Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels for this game, their offense is better without them. These were not the typical Timberwolves, either. Were it not for single, stupid foul by Anthony Davis, the Lakers would've shut the Timberwolves out in the second half of the fourth quarter. From that point forward, these are Minnesota's offensive stats: Things continued in that fashion until the 6:01 mark of the fourth quarter. The Timberwolves scored 60 first-half points and then tacked on 26 more in the third quarter. They hardly looked like an elite defense for most of their battle with Minnesota. That ranked second in the NBA for that period, but remember, LeBron James missed a good chunk of that time. 11 on, the Lakers allowed only 110.8 points per 100 possessions. The Lakers were inconsistent defensively for most of the season, but once their trade deadline acquisitions arrived, they were practically an immovable object. Here are the biggest takeaways from Tuesday's Laker victory. That team will face the Denver Nuggets in the first round, while the loser will be in the lottery. The winner of that game will travel to Minnesota on Friday to determine who will earn the No. Now the Timberwolves will await the winner of Wednesday's Pelicans-Thunder game. The Lakers regained control in overtime, and while the Timberwolves blew a few opportunities to even things up, they just couldn't score enough points to threaten Los Angeles. The Lakers cut the deficit to seven at the end of three quarters, took the lead with 1.4 seconds left in regulation thanks to a Dennis Schroder 3-pointer, and only needed to go to overtime after a terrible foul by Anthony Davis on Mike Conley's game-tying desperation 3-point attempt. The shorthanded Timberwolves, missing starters Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, built leads as big as 15 points in the second half, but with such a thin lineup, they just couldn't hold on in a 108-102 loss. The Los Angeles Lakers will face the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs after one of the most impressive comebacks of the season. Well, it was one of the stranger games of the 2022-23 NBA season, but after 53 minutes of play-in basketball, the Western Conference has its No.
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