The fall is dizzying for the Lakers, who still bow heavily, this time in Minneapolis against the Wolves. The latter continue on their superb dynamic with a 124-104 victory. They bring their record to 41-30 while the Californians no longer advance with 29 wins and 40 losses and are only 2.5 games ahead of the Spurs, 11th.
The Wolves were led by an excellent Karl-Anthony Towns trio (30 points at 8/15 and 8 rebounds), Anthony Edwards (27 points at 8/21 including 6/11 at 3-pts, 6 rebounds and 4 assists) and Pat Beverley (18 points at 6/9 including 2/3 from afar). Minnesota shoots at 44.4% including an excellent 17/42 from afar and captures no less than 15 offensive rebounds while the Lakers were struggling offensively: 41.9% including 10/45 at 3-pts. LeBron James could not carry his own, limited to 19 points at 8/21 including 1/8 from afar and 5 lost balls.
The Wolves quickly took control in this match by taking advantage of a new very bad start from the Californians. Driven by KAT, Beverley and Malik Beasley, Chris Finch’s men led 31-17 after 12 minutes, then flew away in the second quarter in the wake of an untenable Anthony Edwards, author of 20 points over the period for reduce the gap to 25 points! We thought the deal was over, but the locals relaxed a bit and the Lakers regained hope by gradually recovering their delay in the second half to come back to 4 points on a basket from DJ Augustin at the start of the last quarter. Moment chosen by KAT to take matters into their own hands against a porous defense and score 16 points in the last act and repel the Lakers. They thus passed a 25-9 to avoid a difficult end to the match.
