2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West First Round: #3 LA Lakers vs #6 Minnesota Timberwolves (MIN leads 3-1)

[sikma42]

JJ gambled and lost..but to be honest he had no choice..had to go all in here.
Lakers are done but the future is bright:)
SGA vs Edwards waiting for that series in western finals.

So he had no choice but to make zero subs the entire second half.

The rationalizing some people get is insane. Legitimately insane.


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[cgf]

Playoff Randle just can not be stopped

[leolozon]

It bothers me that Reid can foul Luka every play. No hand checking… right? Every time Luka tried to drive Reid grabs him.

I can’t believe they changed the call at the end. It was nothing.

Frustrating game if you take for the Lakers.

[Optms]

Respect to Lebron for going 48 minutes and still playing both sides.

Truly GOAT

[bledredwine]

Why does lebron never take the last shot…. i thought he’s supposedly clutch? Shouldn’t LA win these close games with him and luka?

celebrating with some of chicago’s finest pizza

[dWadeOwnzYou]

Lakers in 5.

[John Murdoch]

Luka can barely get passed halfcourt without having to turn his back ...dude needs to take his conditioning sereiously. Part of me knows we beat this minny team without the Luka trade tbh but it is what it is. Feel bad for LeBron going down with this fat crybaby

[JXL]

Read on Twitter

[Ethomasp31]

GSW vs MIN should be good

Changes everything.. Minn vs OKC in the WCF would be wild

Am I the only one who expected a Minnesota - OKC conference final before the playoffs began?

I actually did after I saw the brackets. The LAL are better than I thought they were....LBJ has more in his tank that I thought.

Is it just me or did the Wolves home crowd seem a lot louder than the LAL home crowd?

[Johnny Bball]

Rudy Gobert is terrible btw. Too bad Finch realized that and benched his ass the entire 4th.

LA went small. Their own fault

[Ducklett]

I feel like if a challenge call happens during the other team's timeout, they shouldn't be charged for a timeout. Seems like a bad wrinkle of the rule.

That said, great challenge for Coach Finch!

I'm gonna be honest I had no idea why Ant insisted on a review. In real time, the play looked clean. But the bird's eye view confirmed that it was a foul after all. Ant was right.

Same here. Looked clean from the original angle.

I would say it would obviously look clean from the worst angle that didn't have any depth to the slapping motion.

[Sharkboy242]

Remember when they said Lakers in 5

I remember

[sp6r=underrated]

I feel like if a challenge call happens during the other team's timeout, they shouldn't be charged for a timeout. Seems like a bad wrinkle of the rule.

That said, great challenge for Coach Finch!

I'm gonna be honest I had no idea why Ant insisted on a review. In real time, the play looked clean. But the bird's eye view confirmed that it was a foul after all. Ant was right.

Same here. Looked clean from the original angle.

I thought it was clean too. This is why I defend refs so much. Even on most of their blown calls, and this one was proven to be blown, you can totally understand why they got it wrong.

[KGdaBom]

The Lakers should be charged with elder abuse. LeBron is going to die if he tries to jump that high again.

The fact that he can do that after playing alllll damn game is actually giving me a devoted MJ lover some questions about who has the goat horns

Lebron is undoubtedly amazing for his age, but that doesn't tip the scales in terms of greatest of all time. Pretty weird thing to say.

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Wolves fan here. LeBron is without question the GOAT.

[MrPainfulTruth]

If Jokic was there instead of Lebron Lakers would win. Wasting Luka’s prime

I mean this is kind of obvious right? A 3pt game and you wanna add in the best player in the world for the win? Of course

No one is calling LeBron the best player in the league or even top 5

I agree its an unfair comparison at this point of LBJ's career but he still completely disappeared in the fourth. Cant expect Reaves and Hachi and DFS to bail you out in a close crunchtime game. Luka had to do the entire carrying.

[Michael Jackson]

If Jokic was there instead of Lebron Lakers would win. Wasting Luka’s prime

I mean this is kind of obvious right? A 3pt game and you wanna add in the best player in the world for the win? Of course

No one is calling LeBron the best player in the league or even top 5

I think the depth is what kills it plus LeBron did more on defense than Jokic would down the stretch. Yeah LeBron is not top 5 anymore but any given night he still is.

[Doranku]

Rudy Gobert is terrible btw. Too bad Finch realized that and benched his ass the entire 4th.

LA went small. Their own fault

They have a grand total of zero playable bigs on their roster. What choice is there?

[Nuntius]

I feel like if a challenge call happens during the other team's timeout, they shouldn't be charged for a timeout. Seems like a bad wrinkle of the rule.

That said, great challenge for Coach Finch!

I'm gonna be honest I had no idea why Ant insisted on a review. In real time, the play looked clean. But the bird's eye view confirmed that it was a foul after all. Ant was right.

i can't tell 100% but it does look like he would have felt his wrist getting slapped and they took a chance on that

Yeah, that's probably why he was so adamant. Unlike an out of bounds call which you may not really know what happened, you can definitely feel the slap.

[Optms]

The fact that he can do that after playing alllll damn game is actually giving me a devoted MJ lover some questions about who has the goat horns

Lebron is undoubtedly amazing for his age, but that doesn't tip the scales in terms of greatest of all time. Pretty weird thing to say.

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Wolves fan here. LeBron is without question the GOAT.

Lebron hate crew will be running wild after this loss. No point in talking sense.

[California Gold]

Eh, suck it up. It's the playoffs. We had plenty of opportunities to make late shots and/or get stops and we didn't do it. Could be up 3-1 instead of down 3-1 but it's make/miss and we mostly missed.

I'm not even a Lakers fan and I felt bad for how bad they got hosed in the 2nd half. Yeah it's the playoffs, let the teams decide the game by calling the game the same the whole game. You can't reward LeBron ft's in the 1st half getting bodied by Wolves defenders and then in the 2nd half let Naz Reid and McDaniels hand check Luka left and right on the perimeter.

It's pathetic.

Well, I am a Lakers fan and I'm way more pissed at our missed opportunities -- how many opens 3s did we brick? how many defensive assignments did Luka blow? etc etc -- than anything the officials did or didn't call.

Whining about officiating when you had the game in the palm of your hand is soft.

That just proves to me that if the game was called fairly and consistently that the Lakers win anyway even if they don't make the shots they missed.

Like I said maybe they didn't ultimately decide the game because there's other things like rebounding that the Lakers could've done better but the refs surely did not help.