The Los Angeles Lakers find themselves down 3-1 to the Minnesota Timberwolves in their first-round series following a 116-113 loss in Game 4 at Target Center on Sunday. The Lakers are now on the brink of being eliminated, but Luka Doncic made it clear postgame that he isn’t throwing in the towel.
“It’s definitely disappointing, but we haven’t lost nothing yet,” Doncic said. “It’s first to four wins. We just got to still believe.”
The Lakers led 94-84 after three quarters and had put themselves in a great position to come away with a win, which would have tied the series at 2-2. They then proceeded to collapse in the fourth quarter, losing it 32-19.
This was the second game in a row where the Lakers have come up short in the final period. The Timberwolves closed out Game 3 on a 13-1 run to get the win, and Doncic was asked if fatigue had played a role in these last two defeats.
“This is the playoffs, fatigue shouldn’t play any role in this,” Doncic stated. “Played a lot of minutes, but that shouldn’t play a role. I think they just executed better on the offensive end during the last minutes.
While fatigue may or may not have played a role in the earlier games of this series, there is a good chance it did in Game 4. Lakers head coach JJ Redick had Doncic, LeBron James, Austin Reaves, Dorian Finney-Smith, and Rui Hachimura play the entire second half.
The Lakers didn’t seem to have much left in the tank in the fourth quarter. They shot 5-18 from the field as a team and just couldn’t keep pace with the Timberwolves.
Doncic went 1-6 from the field in the final period but did make all five of his free throws to end up as the Lakers’ leading scorer in it with seven points. The 26-year-old finished with 38 points (13-28 FG), one rebound, two assists, one steal, and one block in Game 4.
This was the second game in this series where Doncic wasn’t able to wreak havoc as a playmaker. He only had one assist in Game 1, and this certainly isn’t the norm. Doncic had played 50 playoff games coming into this series and recorded two or fewer assists in just two of them. That number has now doubled in four games.
The Timberwolves have defended Doncic 1-on-1 and are not allowing him to dominate both as a scorer and playmaker. The five-time All-Star is averaging 30.8 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.0 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game in this series, and while that’s still not ideal for the Timberwolves, they’ll live with that.
The Timberwolves now have one foot in the next round, but you’d give the Lakers a puncher’s chance because they have Doncic and James. The Slovenian is certainly looking forward to the challenge.
“Yeah, it’s a fun challenge,” Doncic said. “And we should have extra motivation to win these next three games. It’s going to be very hard, every possession is going to matter, and we’re going to go 100% no matter what.”
Game 5 will be at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday at 10 PM ET. The Lakers would be fancying their chances at home, and if they do win, all the pressure will be on the Timberwolves for Game 6.
