MINNEAPOLIS — Luka Doncic had more color in his skin Sunday, his body warmer than when he slowly hobbled out of Target Center in sweats Friday night. He’d felt miserable during Game 3.
“Virus,” he said. “Still have it.”
At least he was feeling better — even if things were looking worse for his team.
The Lakers played two games in Minnesota, one with a diminished Doncic and one without making a substitution in the second half, and had the same result. Both losses have put the team in an improbable spot, needing three straight wins to keep their season alive.
There are reasons, credible ones even, to explain away why they left Minnesota empty-handed. Doncic’s Game 3 illness obviously meant it would be tough for the Lakers to win.
And despite fumbling a lead in Game 4, the Lakers weren’t the only ones who thought Doncic should’ve been shooting free throws with a chance to take a lead with 30 seconds left after being tripped instead of the Lakers turning the ball over on the inbounds pass that followed. The NBA said Monday that referees missed the foul on Doncic.
“I mean it was just, you know, big play after big play,” LeBron James said. “And, they made a couple more plays than we did obviously.”
But the real reasons the Lakers might now be in the final moments of their season is because, in this series, they’ve been awful in the final 12 minutes of the game.
“We had opportunities to win,” James said of the fourth on Sunday, “We just didn’t close.”
He might as well have been talking about the whole series, though.
The Lakers having actually scored eight more points that Minnesota in the first three quarters of this series only to be outscored by 36 in the last.
It will undoubtedly be a point of emphasis as the Lakers hold practice Tuesday ahead of Game 5 on Wednesday.
They’ve made only 29.1% of their shots during fourth quarters throughout the series. James is seven for 20. Austin Reaves is four for 13. Doncic is five for 17. Dorian Finney-Smith and Rui Hachimura are a combined two for 14.
Sunday, those misses included layups and wide-open threes.
“It’s definitely disappointing. But nothing is won,” Doncic said. “ We haven’t lost nothing yet. It’s the first to four wins and we just gotta still believe.”
And the Timberwolves have been capitalizing late all season, Minnesota outscoring teams by the second most points in the fourth quarter, behind only the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Lakers still have chances to course correct, even if the problems might be bigger than two games in Minneapolis. Postgame, Finney-Smith referenced James leading the Cavaliers to a title after being down 3-1 to Golden State.
But only 13 teams in league history have pulled it off.
“Obviously you don’t think about winning three,” James said. “You think about just getting the next one. You know, that’s the only thing that matters because if not, obviously, the offseason begins. So, you know, it’s all about Wednesday. That’s what’s important.”
And to fight off elimination, they’ll have to fight the fourth-quarter struggles.
“Anytime you have an opportunity to go lace them up and play again, you’re not out of it. A lot of these games, besides Game 1…. could have easily went our way if we made a couple more plays down the stretch,” Reaves said. “But we didn’t and dug ourselves in a hole.
“The sun will come up tomorrow and we still got another day to fight.”