My hot take: At the end of games let AUSTIN control the ball and offense. Out of all our guys he is the one that plays the smartest and attacks. Much better energy today. Better discipline on rotations and timely buckets and stops. Nice bounce back even if the 4th was a little dodgy.
Lakers (Lebron and AR) not being able to hit any open 3s was frustrating and the only reason Wolves had a shot Lebron steal layup was the decisive play Need to attack Conley and NAW with size with Lebron just as much as they like to pick on Gobert. Gobert didnt do that bad
Yeah, I am wayyyy less confident now. We won, but they only made 5 threes, and we made every single one of our free throws, I don’t see that happening in Minnesota. Bron also looks not quite right, looks older for sure, Reaves has been really bad overall. They just have crazy length, it seems to be bothering our shooting, I don’t see that changing in Minnesota, might get worse. Reaves has to snap out of this and start making shots, because the way we’re playing right now, if Luka has a bad night we are in major trouble. I did like our defense and intensity, and I don’t see Randle dominating like that every game, but man, we have no legit big, Hayes has been awful. If we come back from Minny tied 2-2 I’ll be impressed, we can play better, but so can they. At least we have 2 days off between games again.
Randle Draymoned all game long. I couldn't believe that charge got overturned. At any rate it's the playoffs, it's physical. We won ugly but we won. There will be a lot of games like this, slug fests. This reminds me of a 90's era game, low scores, intensity.
I am impressed with the defense though, we held Reid to 9, McDaniels to 8, thought everyone fought hard on that end, from Bron to DFS to Goodwin, it was all our effort. Will be hard to keep that up going small though, Hayes has to be better, he has to be, we cannot go far having no real contributions from our only center.
I know its playoffs but gota figure way to use minn physicality against them....we gave up pts to randle but better him than reid n mcdaniels going off
Lakers shot equally as bad. 6-29 from three. LeBron 1-5, Reaves 0-6, Luka 2-8. Highly doubt we see a 3-19 shooting from those three again. Outside of Luka, no one particularly played great on the Lakers. So it wasn't the Lakers best game either. The problem is the size and length of the Wolves. They take out Randle or Gobert and in comes Naz Reid. McDaniels is 6'9. So the Wolves always has 3 guys 6'9+. Part of this is many of us just underestimated the Wolves. They're a good team. Can't win every game easily.
He committed a minimum of 16 fouls, including two flagrants. Just have to continue to meet and surpass their physicality. Good thing about defense is it travels. We can smother them in Minnesota, as well. Hayes might've had the worst 20 seconds any starter has had in the playoffs so far this year. He was s*** in the other minutes too. He also is out there thinking he's Luka with the complaining. Luka is arguably the best player on any court he steps on, Jax is the 10 best player on any court he's on. Stop complaining and be better.
This series appears to be going 7 games. I’ll say it: we could really use a healthy Christian Wood right now.
If we want to have ANY chance of winning G3 or G4, which I’m already dreading based on today’s performance (sure we won, but not convincingly), then JJ has a TONNNN of homework today and he CANNOT SLEEP. Thought we’d take the G1 beatdown a little more seriously. At least we won and guaranteed a G5. But i just don’t feel good about it at all. Minny is the better team, and in multiple facets. We’re doing all this with no damn center. Rui needs to put some resistance somewhere man. He isn’t that guy though, but I keep longing for it. LeBron had the numbers, but I just wasn’t into his game tonight, esp offensively. So many head scratching things. Vando still gets NO BURN, yet is clearly our best defensive player who places us in another stratosphere defensively. I get that he brings zero offense to the table, but what about Rui and DFS? They don’t scare anyone…
I think game 3 will be the deciding factor here. If Wolves win, it means the Lakers are in for a series. If Lakers win, I think they'll be more motivated to end it in 5 to avoid traveling back to Minny and knowing that they need to be ready for GSW. Lakers haven't exactly played great offensively these past two games so there's still room for improvement to be better. I'm still sticking with Lakers in 5. Reaves/LeBron will show up and all we then need is a decent game from Luka to blow the game out.
Is he even healthy after all this time? I think the Lakers probably would have found a way to keep him if they thought he could come back this year. Wonder if they bring him back he has a history with Luka as well
really not sure the lakers can overcome minny's athleticism and physicality. hope they can prove me wrong luka can't do it all on his own
I’m glad we win the season was on the line tonight, but it’s become clear our offense is way too reliant on Luka. I don’t know what’s going on with LeBron, but he just hasn’t been himself he’s made some great plays the consistency just isn’t there so far in two games offensively although I thought his defense was good. One of the few times I agree with what Charles Barkley said is when he talks about the Lakers offense stagnated because there was no ball movement in the second half due to them focusing solely on isolating their perimeter players on Gobert. I get it’s a highly favorable matchup, but too often it’s just either Luka or Reaves going one on one with minimal ball or man movement. It’s hard to feel too excited after a performance like tonight this game should’ve been over by halftime by the Lakers allowed the Timberwolves back in this game. If you’re going to play small then you have to shoot better then 6/29 from 3 the problem is Jaxon Hayes has been a non factor through two games. Everything rides on Game 3.
I'm glad we won, but I do not like how close this game was. Luka and Lebron looked tired and this looks like this series will be a dogfight.
