Luka Doncic against the Minnesota Timberwolves felt like one of the safer bets across the playoff field. He played them a year ago. It didn’t work for Minnesota.
The Dallas Mavericks sent them home in five games. Doncic averaged 32.4 points in that series. He exposed Rudy Gobert to another year’s Taunts. I drew the switch for Game 2’s final possession and cooked this year’s defensive player for the 3-pointer who won the game. Doncic kept Minnesota out of the NBA Finals a year ago. Certainly he torched the Timberwolves again, right?
Well…yes, no. Doncic scored 37 points in Game 1 on Saturday, but his new team, the Los Angeles Lakers, lost in a 117-95 blow. If you’re looking for an immediate explanation of why, consider two of the most important teammates that Doncic had his last postseason, Derek Lively II and Daniel Gaford. Doncic announced 41 assists at last year’s Western Conference Finals, with over half of whom (22) going to his two centres. Of these 22, 10 are the single pass type Rob, which is undoubtedly the best pass at Doncic’s Arsenal.
Think about the roster Doncic is currently playing. The only center to play consistently is Jackson Hayes. He is basically not as vibrant as Gafford in every respect. He played eight minutes in Game 1. The Lakers lost 11 points. They played the rest of the game without a center. Doncic only cooked a single assist. It was the second time in his career when he was tied down by one dime in a playoff game.
Suddenly, what happened on Saturday makes a little more sense. At the trade deadline, the Lakers almost got a new starting center for Charlotte Hornets big man Mark Williams. They made a deal about his body. Only time can tell if it was the right decision of the grand plan of things. I don’t know how Williams will be healthy in five years. I don’t know which center the Lakers will add this offseason. There are too many variables here to make a long-term declaration. But in the short term, Game 1 made it clear how badly the Lakers have missed out that they have one big guy they can trust.
Absence was felt in every way you would expect. They ruled out 42-33 in the competitive portion of the game and allowed 23 second chance points. They were outscores with paint 42-30 before garbage time, and the Timberwolves himself found that the basket had no meaningful deterrent.
“I just noticed when Jackson Hayes wasn’t on the court, when they didn’t have rim protectors in the game,” said Jaden McDaniels, 6-foot-9, scored 25 points and made four offensive rebounds in the win. “If he’s not in court, I’m basically the tallest person out there.”
Hayes is more reliable when it comes to positioning defense, and if he had a better hand to catch the Robs, who Doncic likes to throw, JJ Reddick might be able to trust him for more than eight minutes. Obviously, at least in Game 1, he didn’t.
But the Lost Assist is where the Lakers feel the flaws in their size most. The Timberwolves won nearly twice as much as 29-15. Certainly, part of that was due to the Minnesota outlier three-point shooting. They’re not going to make 3 half again. But the Lakers didn’t shoot accurately either. They made 15 triples in Game 1. They did it 31 times in the regular season and went 20-11 in those games. They were blown away on Saturday, which makes sense in the context of the roster they have and the roster they face.
The Lakers are built to overwhelm the enemy with their shot creations. Stopping Doncic requires a lot of defensive resources. Many promise to make it even more difficult to slow LeBron James and Austin Reeves. Having these three players means that you can always create benefits and find inconsistencies.
Doncic did it almost on his own with the Mavericks last year. Those big guys were a big part of it. Containing him as a driver often meant spinning a big man to meet him, and thus taking him away from the lob, which he ideally guarded. Doncic gets a simple bucket or his center has. Without the center of the floor, Doncic will be predictable.
His pass almost universally goes to the 3-point shooter. The Lakers have high-end shot making, but what about the shooting itself? It’s not particularly impressive. They ranked 19th in three-point attempts per game and 14th in a 3-point percentage. He hasn’t collapsed his defense in exactly the same way without that dangerous center. This makes it difficult to force the defense to spin and give James the opportunity to punish the mismatch, making it difficult to repeat it again.
All this led to a 95-point outing that didn’t provide a plausible path to victory. The Lakers don’t have Anthony Davis anymore. They are not built to win a Slugfest. Their goal is to use their starball handlers to find and torture your weakest defender. It’s not easy without the centres that enforce these impossible choices. The Timberwolves had the sixth best defense in the NBA. If they can stick to their basic defense, they are relatively sturdy.
Is there a solution here? It’s not clear. James has been a very effective pick-and-roll big name in the past, especially for Kyrie Irving of Cleveland, but the Lakers have yet to hone Doncic James’ two dancers. He does not have Gaford or lively catch radius, and Doncic’s speciality is throwing passes that only his huge center can catch. Jarred Vanderbilt doesn’t have enough effort to do that role.
This does not address the Gobert issue. If the Lakers place a remote, unreliable shooter on the floor, the Timberwolves will simply place the Goat on that player, so he can be as free to defend with the rim as he wants.
These are pretty fixable issues in the offseason. It might be as easy as “getting a center.” But for now, Saturday reminded me of how quickly the team was put together. The Lakers had no intention of entering the playoffs like this. The situation demanded it. Now Doncic faces the Timberwolves with a completely different kind of supporting cast than he was a year ago.
Doncic and James are two of the smartest players in NBA history. The Reaves weren’t too late, and Redick was a regular season creative adjuster. If there’s a solution here, they’ll find it. But whatever it is, it probably has to be more conventional than last year’s approach of throwing it at a tall man.
