Lakers let Timberwolves’ young stars have their fun and lose, 119-104
Reporting from Minneapolis — Last week in Los Angeles, when Shaquille O’Neal descended from the top of the 100 section at Staples Center, fresh off his statue ceremony, and took his courtside seat, even the Minnesota Timberwolves felt the energy in the building change.
But on Thursday night, there was no such boost for Los Angeles.
The Lakers lost to the Timberwolves, 119-104, six days after beating them in overtime at home. A trio of young stars scored big and helped propel Minnesota. Forward Andrew Wiggins scored 27 points, center Karl-Anthony Towns scored 32 and guard Ricky Rubio had a career-high 33 points.
“Ricky is a very, very good player and I’m a big fan of his game,” Lakers Coach Luke Walton said. “ We let him get comfortable, we let him get hot early on. … Towns and Wiggins are players you can play as good as you want on them defensively and they can still find a way to get 25, 30 points. I’m not saying we did a great job on them defensively, but it’s different than the 30 Ricky got on us.”
The loss dropped the Lakers to 21-54, still half a game worse than the Phoenix Suns. The Brooklyn Nets, who lost 90-89 to the Detroit Pistons, own the worst record in the NBA at 16-59. The Lakers are second and the Suns are 22-54.
The Lakers’ odds of having a top-three pick, and thus keeping their first-round pick, improve the worse their record is.
Offensively, the Lakers played a very balanced game. Seven players shot in double digits — every starter except Ivica Zubac, who suffered a high ankle sprain in the game’s third minute.
Corey Brewer, starting for Brandon Ingram, scored 11 points, Julius Randle had 12 (with 13 rebounds), D’Angelo Russell 14, Jordan Clarkson 18 (with seven assists), backup center Tarik Black scored 15 with nine rebounds, reserve guard Tyler Ennis scored 12 and reserve forward Thomas Robinson scored 12.
“I feel like with us it could be anybody’s night,” Russell said. “To have that many guys scoring the ball, at a high rate. Add some defense to it, I think it’ll be good.”
The Lakers were competitive for most of the game, and even led by four during the second quarter. But that was the only quarter in which they held a lead. It was also a time when Walton felt the Lakers’ communication on defense was effective for a time.
For most of the game, though, he found the communication lacking, which opened the door for Rubio’s career night.
“He’s someone that you normally are living with him shooting threes but our defense, we weren’t communicating,” Walton said. “A couple of them he was wide open. This is the NBA, most players will knock down wide open threes. Once he got in a rhythm he started hitting ones that were contested and did a good job of pump faking and getting into the mid-range game and hitting those. It starts with our mental toughness defensively to start a game to not let people get into rhythms, which has been an issue for us all year.”
Minnesota jumped to a lead early, outscoring the Lakers 18-5 to start the game. With a 7-0 run late in the first quarter, the Lakers tied the game at 30. They finished the first quarter tied at 37.
At halftime the Lakers trailed 67-60.
Wiggins scored 15 points in the third quarter, making five of nine field-goal attempts. Minnesota outscored the Lakers by seven points in that quarter.
While the Lakers stayed competitive in the fourth quarter, they never made much of a dent in Minnesota’s lead.
Follow Tania Ganguli on Twitter @taniaganguli
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