MINNEAPOLIS — Value each possession. Move with purpose and speed over every inch of the court. Make the right pass. Hit the big shot. Do the right thing.
Over and over and over.
These are the demands that must be met to win in the playoffs, and when you’re on the road in a building pulsating with energy such as the Timberwolves’ arena, the demands only intensify.
Every turnover can spark a highlight. Every missed rebound can reenergize. Every wrong step is one closer to the end of the season.
So you meet these moments with your best players, counting on them to make the biggest plays in the most stressful moments.
And Lakers coach JJ Redick met that moment by going all-in, playing his five best players for 24 straight minutes in a game where the Lakers ran out of gas in a 116-113 loss.
They will have to fight off elimination in Game 5 on Wednesday in Los Angeles, down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.
The Lakers took the court to start the second half Sunday afternoon with Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and Dorian Finney-Smith. And then to start the fourth, all five got off the Lakers’ bench.
Minnesota guard Anthony Edwards puts up a shot in Game 4 on Sunday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
It’s impossible to know if the heavy legs mattered when Reaves missed wide-open three-point attempts. It’s impossible to know if fatigue was the difference in clean looks at the rim for Doncic and James that both didn’t go down. And no one can know if the stress of having to dance with Anthony Edwards on the perimeter dribble after dribble, fake after fake, caused cracks in the Lakers’ defense to be exposed too much.
And no one can know for sure if 22 seasons in the NBA prevented the 40-year-old James from connecting with Doncic on an inbound pass in the final 30 seconds, robbing the Lakers of a massive possession down one point.
James appeared to get one key stop late, stripping Edwards with 10 seconds left, but officials ruled James committed a foul and Edwards made a pair of free throws to provide the final margin of victory. Edwards finished with 43 points and nine rebounds.
The Lakers still made plays down the stretch, Reaves hitting a big three. James coming up with a pair of massive defensive stops and Finney-Smith hitting a go-ahead three.
Doncic, who played with a stomach bug in Game 3, looked far more like himself in Game 4. He began by attacking the basket, getting into the paint and finishing around the rim. He stretched the defense back beyond the three-point line, answering Minnesota jumpers with shots of his own, motioning for the crowd to calm down twice during the second quarter.
James, who scored 38 in Game 3 to keep the Lakers close, was wildly efficient, using quickness and strength to get advantages against Minnesota’s excellent defense.
And even after foul trouble limited Reaves to a scoreless first half, he made five threes and scored 17 points.
But Reaves’ shot in the corner at the buzzer didn’t drop.
