Jaden McDaniels scored a playoff career-high 30 points and led Minnesota‘s suffocating defense against a struggling Luka Doncic, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 116-104 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round series on Friday night.
Anthony Edwards scored 29 points and Julius Randle added 22 for the Wolves, who outscored the Lakers 13-1 in the final 4:37 of the game after Doncic’s baseline shot tied the game.
The game was close until the last four minutes of the fourth quarter, when the Wolves took a lead that the Lakers would not be able to close, to stay with the victory that puts them in a privileged position, because the fourth game will be played in Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon.
Luka Doncic played with a stomach bug
LeBron James did the heavy lifting with Doncic playing through a stomach ailment, scoring 38 points, including three 3-pointers in a four-possession span midway through the fourth quarter. But he couldn’t find a shot after that, hitting the side of the board with a pass from the corner with the Lakers trailing 111-104 with 1:26 to play.
Despite being diminished, Doncic made important plays and hit three-pointers that helped keep the Lakers in the fight when it seemed that the Wolves were pulling away.
In the end, with 40 minutes on the court, he contributed 17 points, while Austin contributed 20 points to help with the load for LeBron James.
But there was little they could do against the red-hot Jaden McDaniels, Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle, who combined to give the Wolves the lead in the series.
Randle, a first-round pick by the Lakers in 2014, who missed the playoffs last year with New York and has only played 18 postseason games in his career, was especially excited for his first home playoff game with Minnesota. He made nine of 10 free throws and ran all over the court, leading the offense in a 56-26 lead that the Wolves had in the paint.
Doncic was frequently stifled by McDaniels, Minnesota’s perimeter defense ace, and had a particularly slow start. Doncic needed an 8.5-meter shot with Edwards covering him in the final seconds of the first half to reach eight points at halftime.
The Target Center crowd that watched Doncic dismantle Minnesota’s league-leading defense for Dallas in the Western Conference finals last spring delighted in seeing the five-time All-NBA selection suffer. He didn’t have many opportunities to play the villain, struggling to create clean shots and barely bothering to talk trash.
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