Even with Luka Dončić and LeBron James, the Lakers’ margin of error remains slim

LOS ANGELES — The words the Lakers used to describe their Game 1 playoff loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves were digestible, easy to take in and uncomplicated.

“Physical,” as in the Timberwolves were the more decisive bunch, unafraid of the playoff setting, caring less that this was Luka Dončić’s playoff debut as the next Lakers great.

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“Bad” … well, that was Austin Reaves talking about his disastrous first half, although he could’ve been talking about his team’s performance as a whole.

Those things and a lot more were evident as the Minnesota Timberwolves did to the Lakers what they did to Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns last year, and what they did to the Denver Nuggets and Nikola Jokić one round later: steal the series opener quite easily, 117-95, at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday night.

Dončić impressed with 37 points and eight rebounds but only tallied one assist and was exploited defensively.

The Lakers were the one home team to give away home-court advantage on the opening day of the postseason, and they were downright shocked by the Timberwolves, who survived a very early storm to punch the Lakers in the mouth in the final three quarters, outscoring them by 29 points.

It was clear the Lakers were preparing for one type of game to be played, and the Timberwolves were intent on flipping the contest on its head after the opening minutes. JJ Redick has been impressive in his first year as a head coach, ushering the Lakers through a seismic trade and implementing a defense that was best in the league for a stretch, but he couldn’t foresee what was coming Saturday.

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“It’s not to say our guys weren’t ready to withstand playoff-level basketball games,” Redick said. “We were mentally ready, I thought our spirit was right, even when they made runs our huddles were great. I’m not sure physically we were ready if that made sense.

“When they started with a lot of thrust and physicality, we just didn’t respond.”

It feels like the ultimate matchup of the Lakers trying to force the Timberwolves into playing their game — by putting Rudy Gobert in uncomfortable positions, and then the bench, to negate his rim protection.

But then that gives into the speed of the Timberwolves if the Lakers aren’t playing with the force they’ve played with since making the Dončić trade — what they lack in size, they’ve usually made up for in aggressiveness.

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They met their match and then some in Game 1.

The Timberwolves blitzed the Lakers from 3, hitting a playoff franchise-record 21 triples at a 50% clip. Top reserve Naz Reid made six of them — one off his playoff career high — while Jaden McDaniels hit all three of his attempts.

Conversely, the Lakers got next to nada from their bench — Dorian Finney-Smith, Gabe Vincent and Jarred Vanderbilt mustered one field goal each, although Vanderbilt’s value is far more expected on the defensive end than on offense.

But zooming out, nothing went right for the Lakers.

It was as if they were expecting Anthony Edwards to play an immature game, dominate the ball and isolate the shot attempts. But he did the exact opposite, accounting for nine of the Timberwolves’ 29 assists to go along with 22 points and eight rebounds. He caught cramps in the second half and the Lakers made a run with him in the locker room, but as soon as he returned, things settled quite easily.

“The start of their run was transition and second chance,” Redick said. “I think schematics-wise in half-court, we’ll take a look at everything and see what we want to tweak. That’s hard to overcome, particularly when a team is shooting they way they were shooting.”

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All year, and especially in the last several weeks, so much discussion has been about how little separation there is between the playoff teams not residing in Oklahoma City. The Lakers finished better than anyone in large part due to star power at the top and Reaves emerging as an ideal third option who could attack weaker defenders.

But if there were weak spots in the Timberwolves’ defense, the Lakers couldn’t locate them. In some ways, the Timberwolves are perfectly positioned to defend the perimeter-heavy squad with so many long and rangy athletes who don’t need much help.

So with no compromised defense, the ball movement slowed to a crawl, even after Dončić’s great first quarter. The Timberwolves showed discipline and didn’t overreact to Dončić’s barrage.

They looked around and saw LeBron James miss his first four shots and Reaves look completely out of sorts, as he only had one field goal in the first half. James finished the contest with 19 points, five rebounds and three assists — a drastic change from his post-Dončić trade production, averaging 25.1 points, 8.2 rebounds and 6.8 assists.

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You wonder if James, who at his age can still manipulate the game’s pace and structure as well as anyone, took too much of a backseat to Dončić, wanting him to be comfortable in this setting and lost his own rhythm.

And if that is indeed the case, one would expect a much more aggressive James come Tuesday night after two days of rest in what surely will be desperate environment for these Lakers.

But during the Timberwolves’ run, the realization became clear: There’s not much difference between these two teams, just like there isn’t much between the Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Clippers, who staged an overtime thriller in Denver earlier in the day.

The margins are where these series will be won or lost, and the Lakers didn’t have anything to offer in that category. Offensive rebounds led to relocated 3-pointers for Minnesota. Lakers turnovers led to runouts and 3s in transition.

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“We gotta do a better job of controlling the controllables,” James said. “Giving up the 3, fast-break points, second-chance points are things we can control.”

The Timberwolves even withstood Julius Randle committing seven of their 10 turnovers — perhaps they know Randle is trick or treat in that space, so they are playing an even more settled floor game.

The Lakers were playing from behind for the last 36 minutes, giving the crowd hope a few times. But it felt like preparing for a storm that never came, watching the sky get dark but realizing the day would yield nothing more than a breeze as opposed to thunder and lightning raining down.

The Timberwolves aren’t some perfect team, but neither are the Lakers. It doesn’t seem likely the Lakers will be so anemic again, shoot 39.8% from the floor and 36,6% from 3-point range.

But it does show their margin for error is still slim, even with Dončić and James as two basketball geniuses. Who knows if their absolute best will be required to beat the Timberwolves, but it certainly can’t be this.

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