The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t win a playoff game on Friday, it’s just that feeling and they’ll aim to bring the same energy into another matchup with a top team, this one against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday.
The Lakers beat the Milwaukee Bucks 123-122 at home on Friday without the services of LeBron James, who was dealing with a nagging left ankle injury.
D’Angelo Russell scored a season-high 44 points and tied a career high with nine 3-pointers on 12 attempts. Russell finished off the Bucks by scoring the team’s final eight points.
The deciding factor was a floater along the edge of the lane with 5.9 seconds left as Russell scored five points in the final 39.4 seconds.
Russell is rumored to be a potential trade piece for the Lakers to bolster their roster for a playoff run. But a slight offensive increase – 22.8 points per game since January 13 – convinced Los Angeles to keep him.
“Public humiliation only transformed me into the killer you all see today,” said Russell, who lost his starting role for a short time at the start of the new year. “I never lack confidence. I’m never afraid of confrontation. I want all the smoke. … I just have confidence in what I bring to the basketball game, so whatever play is in which I enter, I am confident.”
The Lakers’ on-court celebration Friday really kicked into high gear when new Lakers addition Spencer Dinwiddie blocked a long-range jumper from the Bucks’ Damian Lillard just before the buzzer. Dinwiddie, a Los Angeles area native, was added after the trade deadline when his contract was bought out by the Toronto Raptors.
“Obviously, Dame is one of the best clutch time players the NBA has ever seen,” Dinwiddie said. “Being able to play that game was fun. It was a great moment.”
The Timberwolves will begin a 113-104 overtime loss at Cleveland on Friday, their second overtime loss in their last five games. Minnesota is 2-3 over this five-game stretch after winning seven of eight.
It was the Timberwolves’ second game without Karl-Anthony Towns, who is expected to miss extended time with a knee injury. Naz Reid scored a career-high 34 points, Anthony Edwards added 19 and Rudy Gobert grabbed 17 rebounds.
The Wolves were still just a half-game behind the Oklahoma City Thunder for first place in the Western Conference heading into Saturday’s NBA game.
Minnesota head coach Chris Finch was not on the bench Friday due to illness, with assistant coach Micah Nori filling Finch’s role.
Reid was 7 of 11 from 3-point range, but the rest of the Wolves were 1 of 19. Also troubling was a late technical foul in regulation by Gobert, which allowed the Cavaliers to tie the game on the second night of the Minnesota return game. -back.
“I don’t know if they were back-to-back legs, but they looked good,” Nori said of his shooters. “Obviously without (Towns), who is shooting 40 percent (42.3 percent from distance) and taking a good number of them, we have to find guys who are going to knock it down. … Just keep shooting. “.
