The Los Angeles Lakers are on the verge of becoming the first higher-seeded team eliminated in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs after losing to the Minnesota Timberwolves 113-116 late Sunday afternoon and falling behind 1-3 in their series.
LA team was in control for most of the game, but the T-Wolves’ furious fourth quarter and the Lake Show’s lackluster 19-point fourth quarter sealed the Purple and Gold’s fate.
During the postgame press conference, Lakers head coach JJ Redick said he didn’t want to make excuses but insisted that Luka Doncic should have gone to the free-throw line instead of burning a timeout with less than a minute left in the game and Los Angeles down by a solitary point.
“Luka was tripped,” said Redick. “That was a blatant trip. He just doesn’t fall on his own. We watched it. He gets tripped. So we should have been at the free-throw line. That’s not an excuse for why we lost, but he got fouled.”
Redick was talking about the play with 39.5 seconds left in the game, with Minnesota up 114-113. Doncic was bringing the ball up to their front court when it looked like Jaden McDaniels stuck out his foot, and Luka tripped, forcing him to call a timeout.
On the ensuing play, McDaniels stole LeBron’s inbounds pass to the Slovenian. James got a double-whammy because, during Minnesota’s possession, Bron was called for a foul on a play that was initially called a turnover in favor of the Lakers after Anthony Edwards also slipped.
What made it worse for the Lakers was that Redick sued for a time after Edwards was initially called for an out-of-bounds play because he wanted to set up his team’s final play down a point. But with the call overturned and “Ant-Man” making two free throws, they could not advance the ball down three because Luka used their other timeout when he fell down a couple of plays back.
And so, down by three points and inbounding from under the Minnesota basket, Doncic and James went without a script in the final 10 seconds, and the ball ended up in Austin Reaves’ hand, who missed the potential game-tying three-pointer.
While Redick was criticizing the referees, Showtime Lakers legend Magic Johnson appeared to have called out JJ in one of several social media posts he made right after the game. The particular post alluded to Redick playing James and Doncic without rest during the third and fourth quarters when they were coming off heavy minutes in Game 3, which was played just the other day.
“I don’t know if it smart to play LeBron and Luka the entire second half after only having one day of rest between Games 3 and 4. When we needed LeBron to take over in the fourth quarter he couldn’t – he scored 0 points in the fourth,” tweeted Magic.
Although Magic only talked about LBJ, it was obvious that “Luka Magic” was also tired during the game’s final minutes. The Slovenian played 40 minutes despite being sick last Friday, and although he looked much better in Game 4, it seemed like there wasn’t too much contact between his and McDaniels’ legs. It could have been fatigue that caused him to fall down because he’d played too many minutes in the last three days.
