2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West First Round: #3 LA Lakers vs #6 Minnesota Timberwolves (MIN leads 1-0)

[GeorgeSears]

Sorry TWolves, but Lakers in 5. I don't see how this ends up any differently than the Mavs series in the WCF. The matchups just aren't favorable and poor Mike Conley will be stuck guarding either Austin Reaves or Hachimura. This was the one matchup the TWolves couldn't afford to draw.

[durden_tyler]

Lakers defense will be exposed. Minnesota in 6.

[Wargreymon]

Wolves in 6. Lakers have no bigs. Wish they could both lose.

Look at this ray of sunshine...

[Dubnation]

LA in 6

[Bob8]

Anything can happen, but Lakers have as good draw as possible. Now Grizzlies have to beat Warriors.

[Ito]

Lakers in 4

[web123888]

Horrid matchup for the Lakers. They’ll have to outtalent their way to the next round with Luka & old LeBron.

[ball_takes23]

Going off the comments in the first two pages I'm going to guess most of the posters haven't even seen the Wolves play lol

They are 2nd in the western conference in net rating and had a higher net rating than the Lakers post all star break. They are top 10 in offensive and defensive rating for the season, the only other team besides the top tier contenders in Thunder, Cavs, and Celts. Their main issue has been consistency game to game.

I think this series is close and is going to come down to whether they have a better gameplan for Luka than they did last year. The Laker's need their defense to hold up over the 7 game series but Luka and Lebron vs Ant and Randle in 4th quarter clutch execution is a huge advantage to the Lakers.

Doesnt matter how good minny is, playoffs are all about matchups. The way to beat a Luka team in the playoffs is to make him work on the other end of the floor. Minnesota is probably the worst team in the West for this. Outside of Ant they have nobody who will make Luka pay for switching onto them, and even with Ant they can easily provide help for Luka and he doesnt have the playmaking and Minny doesn't have the shooting to make them pay. Luka owns Gobert going back to his Utah days. Lebron not being healthy is Minny's only shot but even then their chances are slim.

[MikRay]

This should be a cake walk for the Lakers

[EmpireFalls]

Wolves are the favorites and you all are stupid.

The only thing that will flip things is if Silver decides he’d rather see a Lakers-Warriors 2nd round as opposed to Wolves-Rockets… and that sadly is quite likely.

[durden_tyler]

Less of Conley and Gobert, if they identify that early (assuming they can't play D against the match-ups) and Wolves are going to take this series. Reid and DD should have more playing time, at least this series.

[Wolfgang630]

Reid and Julius are huge factors in this series.

[Tracymcgoaty]

haven't gotten reports on Lebron after it looked like he re-aggravated his groin in the houston game. He looked to be getting back to his old self pre injury so this might be huge for the wolves imo.

Hopefully it's not a big deal and he's ready.

Ant vs Luka will be fun.

Guessing it's rui on Gobert.

[Black star]

Going off the comments in the first two pages I'm going to guess most of the posters haven't even seen the Wolves play lol

They are 2nd in the western conference in net rating and had a higher net rating than the Lakers post all star break. They are top 10 in offensive and defensive rating for the season, the only other team besides the top tier contenders in Thunder, Cavs, and Celts. Their main issue has been consistency game to game.

I think this series is close and is going to come down to whether they have a better gameplan for Luka than they did last year. The Laker's need their defense to hold up over the 7 game series but Luka and Lebron vs Ant and Randle in 4th quarter clutch execution is a huge advantage to the Lakers.

Doesnt matter how good minny is, playoffs are all about matchups. The way to beat a Luka team in the playoffs is to make him work on the other end of the floor. Minnesota is probably the worst team in the West for this. Outside of Ant they have nobody who will make Luka pay for switching onto them, and even with Ant they can easily provide help for Luka and he doesnt have the playmaking and Minny doesn't have the shooting to make them pay. Luka owns Gobert going back to his Utah days. Lebron not being healthy is Minny's only shot but even then their chances are slim.

I mean that's one way to beat a Luka team. Another way to beat this Lakers team might be to expose their lack of a true center inside and dominate the offensive glass. Something the Wolves could theoretically do with a Gobert, Randle, and Reid front court. Or to find holes in a defense that has been slipping lately and is starting two defensive liabilities in Luka and Reaves with no real shot blocking deterrent at the rim.

Not saying the Wolves will definitely win this series but people thinking this is gonna be an easy series for the Lakers are underselling the Wolves

[life_saver]

Ideally you would probably expect Conley to play less minutes in this and probably NAW needs to start but knowing Finch, it might probably take him 3-4 games to make the changes

[makubesu]

I’m taking the Wolves here. It just feels like a year too early for LA. The playoffs are where you start to see those weaknesses that the Lakers would’ve plugged if they had more time with Luka.

[AussieCeltic]

Will come down to Rudy Gobert IMO.

If Wolves can figure out how to stop the Lakers putting him in a thousand pick and rolls then they’re a chance.

They really need to look at how the Celtics did the pre switch with KP vs Dallas in the finals. Made it much harder for Luka to operate.

Anyway, Lakers in 6.

[infinite11285]

Wolves in 5

[jscott]

Lakers Wolves have no defense. In five but could be a sweep

Tell me you don’t watch the Wolves without telling me you don’t watch the Wolves.

[jscott]

Ideally you would probably expect Conley to play less minutes in this and probably NAW needs to start but knowing Finch, it might probably take him 3-4 games to make the changes

I dunno. Mike has been shooting out of his mind in 2025.