It’s no happy homecoming
Minus James and Russell, the Lakers open their five-game homestand with dud.
The first of a five-game homestand for the Lakers began with a significant contest on Friday night against the talented and athletic Minnesota Timberwolves, one of the three teams ahead of L.A. in the chase for a spot in the play-in tournament.
The Lakers will play this stretch without LeBron James, who will be reevaluated in three weeks after it was announced on Thursday that the forward has a right foot tendon injury. The Lakers also didn’t have starting point guard D’Angelo Russell, who missed his fourth straight game with a right ankle sprain.
But the Lakers did get back Anthony Davis after he missed Wednesday night’s game at Oklahoma City because the team was taking precautionary measures with his right foot stress injury.
Davis did his part with 38 points on 12-of-22 shooting, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Lakers from losing 110-102 to the Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena.
Davis had just five rebounds and he turned the ball over six times.
Rudy Gobert had a double-double with 22 points and 14 rebounds and Anthony Edwards had 19 points for the Timberwolves (3332).
But when the game was close, it was Michael Conley who stood out for the Timberwolves.
The Lakers had trimmed a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter to three points.
But Conley made a threepointer and a right-handed floater late to help stop the Lakers’ rally.
“They are fighting for their life as well, trying to get into the postseason,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said about the Timberwolves, who moved into the seventh spot in the West. “And they had that urgency, and we didn’t. And that’s something that we have to address and we talked about it postgame.”
The Lakers (30-34) remained in the 11th spot in the Western Conference after the loss, one game behind the New Orleans Pelicans.
“At the end of the day, the standings are what they are,” Davis said. “We gotta get back to what we gotta do, control what we can control, and that’s win basketball games.”