EL SEGUNDO — When the Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves match up for Game 1 of their best-of-seven first-round playoff series on Saturday, it will be the first time the teams get a true look at each other.
The last time they squared off on Feb. 27, a Lakers’ 111-102 victory at Crypto.com Arena, Luka Doncic was playing in just his sixth game with his new team after the shocking trade that send him from the Dallas Mavericks to the Lakers. Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle were sidelined, leaving the Timberwolves without two-thirds of their starting frontcourt.
All of the previous matchups – the Oct. 22 season opener, the Dec. 2 game at Target Center and the Dec. 13 matchup in Minneapolis – were played before the Lakers traded for Doncic and forward Dorian Finney-Smith, and before forward Jarred Vanderbilt made his season debut.
So Saturday will be the first time this season when the Lakers and Timberwolves will get a proper matchup between each team’s current iterations – something Lakers coach JJ Redick said last week that he didn’t feel would interfere with preparing for the series, which kicks off on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena (5:30 p.m. PT, ABC/Ch. 7).
“We have a way of prepping based on previous games, previous games against Luka,” Redick said Sunday after the team’s loss to the Portland Trail Blazers in the regular-season finale. “We have a general idea of what their rules are, just like they have a general idea of what our rules are.
“It doesn’t necessarily matter that we don’t have anything on tape with both teams at full strength.”
Here are three things to keep an eye on during Saturday’s Game 1:
DEFENSE ON EDWARDS
The Lakers did a good job containing Anthony Edwards, one of the league’s most dynamic offensive players, during the regular season.
Edwards averaged 19 points on 40% shooting (32.3% from 3-point range) to go with 6.3 rebounds and 3.0 assists but also 3.0 turnovers in four games against the Lakers this season.
Rui Hachimura and Finney-Smith were the primary Edwards defenders in the Feb. 27 matchup before Hachimura left the game with what was eventually revealed to be left patellar tendinopathy and Edwards was ejected after receiving his second technical foul.
The Lakers showed early help on Edwards’ isolations from the wings by bringing a help defender over to the strongside block to deter Edwards’ drive – a tactic the Lakers also deployed against fellow All-NBA guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City) and Jalen Brunson (New York). They generally made sure Edwards’ driving lanes were clogged with a defender to prevent him from getting to the rim.
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“As a team, we got to focus on him,” Hachimura said of Edwards earlier this week. “We just got to guard him as a team – a whole team.”
Isolations are a common play type for Edwards, with the 23-year-old guard ranking in the NBA’s top-10 for isolation possessions per game (5.1 – sixth) and frequency (19.6% – ninth).
The Lakers’ strategy, at least early on, worked even though Edwards had 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting to go with three assists at halftime. All of Edwards’ field goal attempts in the halfcourt were at least 16 feet from the basket. This doesn’t account for times when Edwards would drive into space that was occupied by a Lakers defender and had to kick the ball out after holding onto it for too long.
As the Feb. 27 matchup continued, Edwards did better with countering the Lakers’ defensive strategies by either passing the ball quicker or making better passing reads.
— Khobi Price (@khobiprice.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T04:55:12.633Z
How Edwards and the Timberwolves approach the defensive coverages the Lakers throw at Edwards will be a chess match that will go beyond Game 1, but the tone will be set on Saturday.
BIG VS. SMALL
The cliche “styles make fights” is appropriate for this series.
The Lakers thrive with their center-less lineups, spreading out defenses with their “laser” quintets that feature five players who can shoot, attack closeouts and defend. The Timberwolves thrive with bigger lineups and have several players who can do damage on the offensive glass.
The Lakers’ center-less lineup of Doncic, Reaves, Finney-Smith, Hachimura and LeBron James is their best quintet among their lineups that have played at least 200 possessions, outscoring opponents by 19.4 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning The Glass. Their success stems from a 130.6 offensive rating (points per 100 possessions), which is in the 91st percentile among all lineups in Cleaning The Glass’ data.
The aforementioned quintet features spacing and shooting around three dynamic playmakers in Doncic, James and Reaves. The Lakers have forced other teams who like to play big to either go away from two-big lineups or downsize altogether because of how lethal their small-ball groups can be.
On the other hand, the Timberwolves thrive when they have Naz Reid and Gobert on the floor together – a common look for Minnesota during the middle of quarters. The Timberwolves have outscored opponents by 13 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning The Glass, when their big men share the floor because of an elite defense (103.6 defensive rating – 99th percentile).
Who gains the early edge in style of play could dictate how the rest of the series plays out.
DONCIC MATCHUP
Jaden McDaniels was the Timberwolves’ primary defender against Doncic to start last year’s Western Conference finals between Minnesota and Dallas.
But as the series progressed, McDaniels’ time matching up against Doncic became less frequent, with the Timberwolves having Edwards and Kyle Anderson (no longer on the team) guarding him more frequently in Games 4 and 5.
McDaniels was the Timberwolves’ primary Doncic defender when they faced the Mavericks while Doncic was still with Dallas earlier in this season.
Will McDaniels continue to be the primary Doncic defender, or will the Timberwolves start off with someone else?
Lakers vs. Timberwolves: First-round scouting report, prediction