After two frustrating years, the Los Angeles Lakers have finally returned to the NBA playoffs. They will be the seventh seed in the Western Conference and will take on the Memphis Grizzlies to begin the postseason.
But they had to earn that spot with a play-in tournament victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday — and it wasn’t pretty at all.
Minnesota surprised the crowd at Crypto.com Arena by going up 28-22 at the end of the first quarter and 60-49 at halftime as the Lakers had plenty of problems on both ends of the floor. Karl-Anthony Towns and crew shot 58.8% in the first half, while L.A. seemingly couldn’t buy a basket outside of the paint.
After the Timberwolves went up by 15 with 4:59 left in the third quarter, the game turned when Towns picked up his fourth foul and spent the rest of the night in foul trouble. The Lakers picked up their defense, while Minnesota grew slow and stagnant offensively, allowing them to chip away at their deficit.
They finally tied the game at 95 on a LeBron James 3-pointer with 2:02 left in the fourth quarter. When he found Dennis Schroder for a 3-pointer of his own to put them up 98-95 with 1.4 ticks remaining, it looked like they were on their way to victory — until Anthony Davis fouled Mike Conley on a 3-point attempt with 0.1 seconds left.
Conley, who almost single-handedly kept Minnesota in it throughout, made all three free throws to force overtime. But it had little left at that point, and the Lakers flexed their way to a 108-102 win.
This was an ugly, low-scoring game; both teams combined for 40 turnovers. But the Purple and Gold certainly earned and deserved victory by outrebounding the Timberwolves by six and attempting nine more free throws while holding them to 16 combined points in the fourth period and overtime.