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Lakers drop Game 3 to Timberwolves despite LeBron James’ big night

April 26, 2025

MINNEAPOLIS — It didn’t matter that LeBron James had one of his highest-scoring playoff games as a Laker on Friday night.

Or that the Lakers, at least for one game, broke out of their collective shooting slump, knocking down 17 of their 40 3-point attempts after making a combined 21 in Games 1 and 2 of their first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Because, as James said during Friday morning’s shootaround, “it doesn’t matter what the numbers look like. It doesn’t matter what the stat sheet looks like. … It’s about winning the game and seeing [which] team [gets] to four [wins] faster than the other team. That’s the only thing that matters.”

And the Timberwolves moved one game closer to achieving that goal on Friday, beating the Lakers, 116-104, to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. Game 4 is Sunday afternoon.

“We’re minus-16 in scoring opportunities,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Really hard to win a basketball game in that scenario, particularly against a team that can also get hot from 3.”

James finished with 38 points (13-of-21 shooting), 10 rebounds and four assists, leading the Lakers on a night when Luka Doncic struggled as he battled with a stomach illness that he had been dealing with since Thursday, with ESPN’s Lisa Salters first reporting the ailment during the first quarter of the game.

Doncic finished with 17 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, but he shot 6 for 16 from the field (2 for 8 from 3-point range) and had five turnovers against a Minnesota defense that blitzed and trapped him more often compared to the first two games.

Redick said Doncic was vomiting throughout Friday afternoon after beginning to feel “really under the weather” on Thursday.

Doncic, who underwent extensive postgame treatment and wasn’t at his locker by the time the media was allowed in, didn’t speak after the loss. Gabe Vincent started the second half in place of Doncic, with the 26-year-old Slovenian star not on the bench to begin the third quarter before re-entering the game 49 seconds into the third.

“I didn’t think he was going to come out [out of the locker room for the] second half,” forward Dorian Finney-Smith said. “And I looked at his elbow, he had a big knot on his elbow. I was like, ‘God damn. You’re sick and you getting beat up still.’ So he’s just a tough guy. I know he want to win. He’ll be ready next game.

Finney-Smith added: “Just because how he sound. His body language. How he looked, he looked a little pale. He probably need to hydrate some more. But like I said, Luka tough. He made some tough shots in that fourth quarter to get us back in striking distance.”

Late-game heroics from James and Doncic, and the Lakers’ hot shooting, were spoiled by their struggles with the smaller details of the game – factors that added up.

The Lakers turned the ball over 19 times, directly leading to 28 Minnesota points.

“They’re big, they’re long, they’re athletic, they pressure the basketball, they make everything tough,” Redick said. “We’re gonna have some turnovers. Sometimes they force you into turnovers, which they did.

“But we also had some unforced turnovers: over-dribbling, trying to draw fouls, dribbling into traffic, trying to do a little bit too much with the basketball. We generated a lot of really good shots when we didn’t turn [the ball] over.”

The Timberwolves scored 21 fast-break points, quickly turning defense into offense against a Lakers team that often looked outmatched athletically.

The Lakers also missed seven of their 20 free-throw attempts, leaving valuable points on the board on a night when they needed every one of them.

“In the postseason, obviously you’re not gonna play a perfect game,” James said. “But the more that you make mistakes on top of mistakes, on top of mistakes, things that can be controlled, then it’s not gonna give you an opportunity to be in the best possible chance to win.”

So even with James knocking down three straight 3-pointers in a four-possession span to cut the Lakers’ deficit from 97-90 to 100-99 midway through the fourth quarter, or Doncic making a pair of free throws and a floater on back-to-back possessions to tie the score at 103, the Lakers didn’t overcome the hole they put themselves in.

The Timberwolves outscored the Lakers 13-1 over the final 4:37 after Doncic’s tying baseline jumper, with Anthony Edwards taking a significant step forward in attacking the Lakers.

Edwards scored or assisted on the Timberwolves’ final 13 points, leading Minnesota down the stretch with his shot-making and playmaking. The All-NBA guard finished with 29 points on 12-of-26 shooting to go with eight assists and eight rebounds.

“Our best closing effort of the year, no doubt,” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said.

James couldn’t find a shot after his torrid stretch, even hitting the side of the backboard with a corner heave with the Lakers down 111-104 with 1:26 left. Edwards drained a long 2-pointer on the next possession to wrap it up, sauntering to the edge of the court during a timeout to encourage the crowd to get even louder.

“That was probably the most fun I’ve had in Target Center, for sure,” Edwards said.

Jaden McDaniels led the Timberwolves with a career playoff-high 30 points on 13-of-22 shooting and spearheaded Minnesota’s stifling defense on Doncic, while Julius Randle had 22 points, going 9 for 10 from the free-throw line.

The Timberwolves also got 11 points off the bench from Naz Reid, and 10 points from Donte DiVincenzo.

Austin Reaves was the only Laker besides James and Doncic to score in double figures, finishing with 20 points (7-of-18 shooting), seven rebounds and four assists.

The Timberwolves outscored the Lakers 56-26 in the paint, further showcasing the size disparity between the teams.

Minnesota took 45 field goal attempts in the paint, making 28 of them, while the Lakers only took 28, making 13.

“When we’ve been at our best, we’ve been able to be physical on the ball and not allow blow-bys and also have sort of a cover mentality, multiple effort and it was there at times,” Redick said. “It’s not to say our guys, they exerted a lot of effort, they played hard. But the sort of early throw-aheads, the offensive rebounds … those things really accumulate, especially when you’re turning the ball over.”

James’ scoring total was the fifth time he scored at least 38 points in a postseason game for the Lakers, and his first since he scored 40 when the Lakers fell to the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals on May 22, 2023.

Orange County Register

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Lakers drop Game 3 to Timberwolves despite LeBron James’ big night

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