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

[Iwasawitness]

Being down 3-1 is tough, BUT:

1. Lakers regained homecourt advantage.
2. Lakers now only have to win one game on the road to win the series.
3. JJ figured out how to beat MIN for most of the game.

So I think this is 50/50.

I am not sure you entirely know what home court advantage is.

There are different ways to look at it, but 2 of the next 3 are homecourt games for LAL, and they only have to win one on the road. It seems likely that happens since they haven't won on the road yet, so it's bound to happen.

Right but that’s still not home court advantage by definition. If this was 2-2 it would be a different story.

[Revived]

At this time I’d like to circle back to that myth of “playoff Randle” so many people tricked themselves into believing. Because so many of you obsess over stats without context you thought you could Randle off two playoff runs. One where he was literally carrying a team solo and was heavily game planned against, and another run where he missed end of season with a bad ankle injury, re-aggravated that ankle in the first round, and eventually needed surgery on it after elimination.

Had to hear for a whole week about how playoff Randle will be timberwolves demise. Now we’re 5 games in and he’s averaging 22/5/4 on 50/50/80 but I haven’t seen many people admit their stat watching malpractice.

Forget his scoring, thing that has been shocking is his defense. And I’m not gonna buy it that even any Wolves fan thought he would be this good of a defender against LeBron and Luka. I don’t even think he knew that he’d be able to defend both star players this well in this series.

[Revived]

I don't think Luka is that diffetent than last year Luka, supporting cast and depth made the whole difference, Lakers 25 Vs Mavs 24 is a perfect lesson in the importance of team building, it sucks that LeBron is caught in the middle.of roster shift in LA, this is way too good of a performance at 40 y/o to be wasted, but the team was short on big men depth before the trade and had 0 bigs after the trade, and 0 POA players, Christie isn't that good but would have contributed 20 MPG in this matchup...

Max Christie isn’t making a difference between the Lakers winning or losing games in this series. After an initial hot start with the Mavs, he’s been mediocre or trash ever since.

[sashaturiaf]

Wolves up, ratings shook, refs'll cook, Adam Silver is a crook

Somebody in 7

[Blaze4G]

Being down 3-1 is tough, BUT:

1. Lakers regained homecourt advantage.
2. Lakers now only have to win one game on the road to win the series.
3. JJ figured out how to beat MIN for most of the game.

So I think this is 50/50.

I am not sure you entirely know what home court advantage is.

There are different ways to look at it, but 2 of the next 3 are homecourt games for LAL, and they only have to win one on the road. It seems likely that happens since they haven't won on the road yet, so it's bound to happen.

There aren't different ways to look at it lol. Homecourt means X team can close the series on their home court. Wolves has game 6 at home to close the series.

Which is why when a series just starts, the higher seed has home court advantage because if they win all games at home they can close the series vs the lower seed has to win 1 on the road.

[thinktank]

Lakers fans are amazing.

[Ice Man]

Adam Silver sure did a bad job of rigging this series for the Lakers.

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

Being down 3-1 is tough, BUT:

1. Lakers regained homecourt advantage.
2. Lakers now only have to win one game on the road to win the series.
3. JJ figured out how to beat MIN for most of the game.

So I think this is 50/50.

I am not sure you entirely know what home court advantage is.

There are different ways to look at it, but 2 of the next 3 are homecourt games for LAL, and they only have to win one on the road. It seems likely that happens since they haven't won on the road yet, so it's bound to happen.

if a team has a to win a game on the road to extend they series then they no longer have HCA. Lakers lost HCA when they lost in LA and never got it back when they lost both games in Minny

[thinktank]

Should be about Wolves now but ESPN and everybody talking about Lakers.

Wolves could win it all.

[UglyBugBall]

I am not sure you entirely know what home court advantage is.

There are different ways to look at it, but 2 of the next 3 are homecourt games for LAL, and they only have to win one on the road. It seems likely that happens since they haven't won on the road yet, so it's bound to happen.

if a team has a to win a game on the road to extend they series then they no longer have HCA. Lakers lost HCA when they lost in LA and never got it back when they lost both games in Minny

Which team has more home games left? LAL. Also by not having won any road games yet, they put themselves in position to win the last road game, because you almost never see a higher seed lose every road game. So the Lakers have 2 home games and a road game they should be heavily favored in.

[ReggiesKnicks]

There are different ways to look at it, but 2 of the next 3 are homecourt games for LAL, and they only have to win one on the road. It seems likely that happens since they haven't won on the road yet, so it's bound to happen.

if a team has a to win a game on the road to extend they series then they no longer have HCA. Lakers lost HCA when they lost in LA and never got it back when they lost both games in Minny

Which team has more home games left? LAL. Also by not having won any road games yet, they put themselves in position to win the last road game, because you almost never see a higher seed lose every road game. So the Lakers have 2 home games and a road game they should be heavily favored in.

Home court advantage means "If you win all your home games and lose all your road games, you win the series". That is it. That is the definition.

Lakers can still win the series, but it would mean going 3-0 against a team who is simply better than them.

[jscott]

There are different ways to look at it, but 2 of the next 3 are homecourt games for LAL, and they only have to win one on the road. It seems likely that happens since they haven't won on the road yet, so it's bound to happen.

if a team has a to win a game on the road to extend they series then they no longer have HCA. Lakers lost HCA when they lost in LA and never got it back when they lost both games in Minny

Which team has more home games left? LAL. Also by not having won any road games yet, they put themselves in position to win the last road game, because you almost never see a higher seed lose every road game. So the Lakers have 2 home games and a road game they should be heavily favored in.

These mental gymnastics are something else.

[Liam_Gallagher]

The kicked ball was crazy. I didn't even need a replay to know Julius kicked that ball out of bounds and I had a TV angle from the opposite side of the court.

The foul call on Reaves where Rudy elbowed him was just as bad. Absolutely not a foul on Austin - it was actually a foul on Gobert.

The trip on Luka should have been called. I wasn't exactly sure about that when it happened until they showed the replay which was a clear trip. Luka fell down and had to use a crucial timeout instead. Rough.

A few bad calls, a handful of ticky tack calls for sure. But the Lakers had opportunities to win game 4 and couldn't get the ball in the hoop enough. Gotta be better and those calls wouldn't have lost them the game.

[jscott]

The TRAVEL on Luka should have been called. I wasn't exactly sure about that when it happened until they showed the replay which was a clear trip. Luka fell down and had to use a crucial timeout instead. Rough.

FTFY

You can’t trip someone by having them step on your foot. Luka fell and traveled. Thats what should have been called. A turnover. Not a timeout.

[Liam_Gallagher]

The TRAVEL on Luka should have been called. I wasn't exactly sure about that when it happened until they showed the replay which was a clear trip. Luka fell down and had to use a crucial timeout instead. Rough.

FTFY

You can’t trip someone by having them step on your foot. Luka fell and traveled. Thats what should have been called. A turnover. Not a timeout.

He fell because McDaniels was guarding him illegally. He's been doing that the whole series - it's a good strategy because the ref can't call a foul every time.

[Worm Guts]

On the play where Luka tripped at half court, it looked like Luka stepped on Jaden’s foot to me. It didn’t look like a trip on Jaden.

[Baseline81]

Which team has more home games left? LAL. Also by not having won any road games yet, they put themselves in position to win the last road game, because you almost never see a higher seed lose every road game. So the Lakers have 2 home games and a road game they should be heavily favored in.

[Mavrelous]

The TRAVEL on Luka should have been called. I wasn't exactly sure about that when it happened until they showed the replay which was a clear trip. Luka fell down and had to use a crucial timeout instead. Rough.

FTFY

You can’t trip someone by having them step on your foot. Luka fell and traveled. Thats what should have been called. A turnover. Not a timeout.

Sure you can, this is what happened...
It was an obvious foul

Read on Twitter

[Mavrelous]

The TRAVEL on Luka should have been called. I wasn't exactly sure about that when it happened until they showed the replay which was a clear trip. Luka fell down and had to use a crucial timeout instead. Rough.

FTFY

You can’t trip someone by having them step on your foot. Luka fell and traveled. Thats what should have been called. A turnover. Not a timeout.

Sure you can, this is what happened...
It was an obvious foul

Read on Twitter

Here McDaniels did the same thing in the 3rd Q and was whistled for a foul

Read on Twitter

I don't think teams should leave it for officials to decide the game, and this can be easily missed by a ref, but to claim it's not a foul is absurd.

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

There are different ways to look at it, but 2 of the next 3 are homecourt games for LAL, and they only have to win one on the road. It seems likely that happens since they haven't won on the road yet, so it's bound to happen.

if a team has a to win a game on the road to extend they series then they no longer have HCA. Lakers lost HCA when they lost in LA and never got it back when they lost both games in Minny

Which team has more home games left? LAL. Also by not having won any road games yet, they put themselves in position to win the last road game, because you almost never see a higher seed lose every road game. So the Lakers have 2 home games and a road game they should be heavily favored in.

Just so I fully understand your logic LA has lost 3 out of 4 games and they they put themselves in position to win a road game because "you almost never see a higher seed lose every road game"