Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - LAKERS POSTCAST: Lakers EVEN SERIES with Game 2 win over Wolves

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Luka Dončić had 31 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists while LeBron James added 21 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists as the Los Angeles Lakers evened their series against the Wolves, beating Minnesota 94-85. The Timberwolves were led in the loss by Julius Randle’s 27 and Anthony Edwards's 25. The two teams will battle it out in game three in Minnesota on Friday night. Lakers, LA Lakers, Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Rui, Hachimura Austin Reaves, Dalton Knecht, Dorian Finney-Smith, NBA, Lakers Post cast, JJ Redick, Dave Palet, Lakers vs Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers vs Minnesota Timberwolves Anthony Edwards Support Us, By Supporting Our Sponsors!FANDUEL The NBA Playoffs are here, and FanDuel is giving new customers an incredible way to get in on the action!Right now, when you join FanDuel and place your first $5 bet, you’ll get $250 in Bonus Bets—if your bet wins!I love how FanDuel makes betting so easy, whether it's picking my favorite team or diving into player props.· From 3-pointers to steals to assists, FanDuel has so many ways to bet your favorite player props.Plus, after the game tips off, you can even combine live prop bets into a Same Game Parlay for a chance to win big.Don’t miss out—head to FANDUEL DOT COM and claim your $250 in Bonus Bets today! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You are a Locked-on Lakers Postcast. Part of Locked-on Sports Los Angeles on the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. What a game. Lucas sets the tone early. Lakers played a real aggressive half-court defense, and the Lakers hold off the wolves despite another Minnesota second half run. We talk about it all on the Locked-on Lakers Postcast. I'm Dave Palais.

Thank you so much for joining me tonight. Again, very exciting time as the Lakers end up winning 94. 485 holding off the Minnesota Timberwolves. I'm going to be with you for the next 15 to 20 minutes. Appreciate your comments as you want to talk about tonight's big game two win. Lakers again, we'll head back to Minnesota on Friday for a 630 Pacific time tip off. Should be exciting. We always talked about how these series go.

Look, the odd numbers are the big wins, right? You have to look at game one. You look at game three, game five, game seven. Those odd numbers are big. And for the Lakers to take command, we'll all happen on a Friday night. should be great, but for the Lakers to win today, makes us feel like we still have hope and the season's going to continue on for a while.

The Lakers played Laker basketball. And for the Lakers playing well tonight, it all started yesterday, right? What did J.J. Reddick say? J.J. Reddick said it was the best practice that this team has had in a long time, probably the best practice this team has had since Luca joined the team.

Look, they were embarrassed at home in game one, and they came out tonight, and why was tonight different than game one? Well, here you go. This is what you'll be talking about. Game was different tonight. It was defense. Look, the Lakers were aggressive on defense,

and you hear all the time about NBA. More in this sport than any other sport, you talk about comparisons to different errors, and it's always tough, whether it's Walt Chamberlain, Kareem, Magic. You talk about the different years of Kobe and Chack and all the great Laker teams, but you love to hear people talk about the 90s and talk about how physical the NBA was back.

then and they would let you go. Look, the referees let you go to an extent. Look, I was around. All right. I was watching. I was covering the team. I covered the Lakers for a long time from 93 to about 2005 every single home game I was there. I was watching. And I'm telling you, today's NBA is as physical as it has ever been. And for guys to talk about how it used to be, look, just because they allowed guys to come off the bench and tussle, look, those days are over because it's not good for the league. It's not good for any league. when guys are fighting, but these referees are letting guys play. This is a physical game.

Anyone has ever gone to a Laker game in person knows that this is a physical game. That being said, for all the talk, LeBron played terrible defense, and Luca played terrible defense. The Lakers weren't sharp on game one. Look, they weren't as sharp as they should have been, but tonight was a whole different level. Luca played great half-court defense. LeBron, again, defensively, was a priority.

The Lakers today, they took a lot and they gave a lot. and yet Minnesota had no answers, right? So when you talk about what was the difference in tonight's game, it was the difference in game one. To me, it was the Lakers' half-court defense. Look, they made it a change. Jada McDaniels tore this team apart in game one. Well, tonight in 38 minutes,

Jada McDaniels only had eight points, three of 11 shooting from the field. They let Julius Randall get his. And Julius Randall, I understand he's a former Laker, and usually don't like to see former players that wear your uniform do well. But I don't know any Laker fan that hates Julius Randall.

That being said, it was a perfect night for the Lakers. Julius Randall gets his 27 and the Lakers get the win. That was perfect, right? You don't want to see Anthony Edwards, who's considered one of the best young stars in this league, tear your team apart and get a win. Yeah, he had an outstanding dunk. It only counted as two.

Okay, dunks are overrated, still only counted as two points. Anthony Edwards, the talk that he's playing for his legacy in this series by taking it from LeBron James and saying he's going to go through LeBron James. Well, guess what? It didn't work that way in game two tonight. And for the Lakers, they play tough all the way through. It's a complete team effort.

It's exactly what this team needed. And for a while there, it was a little bit scary. I thought Luke could try to get his teammates involved a little bit more early on. But at the same time, when he had a chance of score, he took over. And Luca had an outstanding first quarter, right? Again, Luca has dominated at the beginning of these games. But at the end, it seems like Luca gets a little tired. And it's a lot.

When you're taking a beating and they're switching, on Luca over and over again. There's almost so much he can do to sit there and help this team go ahead and leave them to a win. So Luca tonight, of course, had a great game like he always does. Austin Reeves off to a really slow start, which was concerning for this team and for us as Laker fans when we're sitting there saying, you know, what does Austin Reeves have to do to start the game a little bit hot? Well, he started the game missing his first four shots. But the Lakers didn't need Austin Reeves because the Lakers had a 19-point lead after the first quarter. They were leading 3415, which was great.

All right. At the same time, Luca was absolutely outstanding. And what I thought was big as well was the Lakers bench. The Minnesota bench torched the Lakers in game one. After the first quarter, you could tell it was going to be different because the Lakers bench outscored Minnesota by a score of 8 to 2. Lakers shot 55% early on, 36% from 3-point range. All the stuff that we had talked about all season long that the Lakers had to do.

number one, get off to a hot start. Two is you got to cut down on your turnovers, which they did. And three is they had to make their free throws. And the Lakers, which has been costly all season long by missing free throws that this team is supposed to get, the Lakers tonight shot extremely well from the free throw line. And it was very exciting. And at the same time, I understand free throws are boring. Talk to James Hardin, who's made a career out of it.

But at the same time, when they're giving you free shots, and again, the word is free in free throws, you need to make them. Lakers tonight were perfect 20 from 20 from the free throw line. Absolutely outstanding. And that's what championship teams do. They hit their shots when they're given to them and the free throws have to go down, especially at the professional level. But shoot 100% from the free throw line as a team was absolutely outstanding. Luca, of course, shot the most of them. He was 11-11 from the line. And you can't say enough about what this team did with their superstars. And that's why they're called superstars. That's what separates those guys from every.

everybody else, whether it's Lucas 31, whether it's the bronze, 21 points, 11 rebound, seven assists, or Austin Reeves, who finally came through and his shot started a fall. And don't discount those layups. Again, I understand they're only two points, but Austin Reeves had some huge layups that were big for this team that kind of made the difference when the Lakers needed to make a run, needed to make separation to change things up a little bit. It was Austin Reeves that got the team back on track. So the Lakers at the half, they were up 81-65, but at the same time, we saw what happened with Minnesota in game one where they came out scoring 11 straight points.

And the game was kind of over in game one. Well, the Lakers was important that they answered back. And the Lakers did answer back. Okay, Lakers at one point went down by 9, 11 points. And then it was LeBron James puts the team on his back. Lakers go up by 18 with six minutes remaining in the third quarter. all of that was important. Well, the wolves weren't done because the wolves are in this situation for a reason.

Don't forget about the beginning of the year. The wolves were picked by many experts as a team that could beat not only the Lakers, but could make a run for a championship this year. And the wolves did a fantastic job in the fourth quarter. There was no quit. There was no quit with them as they cut the Lakers lead down to nine. And it took everything the Lakers had until the last basically 45 seconds of this game to feel like, hey, the Lakers are going to win this one.

Minnesota is not going away. What does Stu Lance say all the time in the broadcast? Good teams put other teams away. It's not like teams quit. And when you're talking about the playoffs and trying to fight for your legacy and everything that you are, and you have a new ownership group in Minnesota, that Minnesota is hungry. And I saw so many people that I'm following on social media during the game that are saying, Minnesota's hungry.

They want the game more than Lakers. Well, not exactly the case, okay? Because the Lakers won tonight, 94, 85. We're going to get into the box score. I want your comments and everything as well. But there's so much going on tonight's game. And the excitement factor right now is through the roof as the Lakers win game two of the series, 9485.

Exciting time for Laker fans, as there is still hope for this team to get another championship. I want to mention the people over at Fando. Look, the playoffs are here. The NBA is what everybody's talking about right now. Ratings are through the roof, and everyone is excited about the playoffs. and of course it helps that the lakes are in it.

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team or diving into player props from three-pointers to steals to assist. Fandul has so many ways to bet on your favorite team with player props. Look, plus you get game tips off and everything's ready to go because you can combine your live prop bets into the same game parlay for a big chance to win. Very simple. Don't miss out. Head to fandle.com and claim your $250 in bonus bets today. All right. So looking at this Laker team right now, again, they win 9485. They will play game three,

a crucial game three in Minnesota of the 630 tip off on Friday with so many things going on. you want to know what are the changes that the Lakers will make. And at the same time, what are the changes that Minnesota will make? Because Minnesota, you know, we'll go back and say, look, a split is fine. But in reality, you know, Minnesota going into this game today saying, we're much better than that Laker team. We are rebound in that Laker team.

Our bench was ridiculous in game one. We're a better team and we could put the Lakers away and move on to that next series. Well, all of a sudden, Minnesota knows, look, the series is going to go a little bit longer than they had hoped. It was not the outcome they wanted. It's going to be a long flight back. to Minnesota. And at the same time, you look at the guys that got the job done. There are only two guys on Minnesota that got the job done. We talk about a complete team effort.

If you're the Lakers and you look at what you did defensively, will you let Julius Randall get his, right? It's 27 points in 38 minutes. You look at Anthony Edwards, he's always going to get his. It's 25 points and 40 minutes. Mike Connolly in 21 minutes, who started the game, zero points. 0.05 from the field, over three from three-point shooting. Rudy Gobert only had six points, Only 205 shooting. Jaden McDonald's, which was huge tonight, was 3 of 11 from the field in 38 minutes, 8 points. That was it.

Nasreid, who torched the Lakers in game 1 with 9 points. The Lakers defense was the key tonight, and when we ever thought we'd say it was the Lakers defense that was important. That being said, when you look at the Lakers side of things, Luca's going to get his is 31 and 41 minutes. LeBron, his 21 points, his 11 rebound, 7 assists, and 39 minutes. minutes. Ruiz, who got banged up, had to come back with a mask, had to leave the court, came back with a mask. He finished with 11 points. He was big for the Lakers, and Austin Reeves turned it

on when the Lakers needed it most. Now, the Lakers only had 13 bench points in this game, seven from Doreen, Phiney Smith, six from Gabe Vincent. Again, they are staying away from some of the guys I would like to see in the rotation. Jordan Goodwin got in for seven minutes. That's fine. Jordan Goodwin basically was a non-factor. One rebounds is only stateline with two fouls. But again, Dalton Connect is the one I'd love to see in. They must be penalizing Dalton Connect because it's either lack of experience in big games or they don't think he's a good enough defender to be on the floor. But I'd love to see Dalton Connect on the court for the Lakers and for, you know, my reasons,

I think he's a guy that helps this team can either expand the lead or a guy that can get you back in a game. But at the same time, JJ Redick doesn't see it. He feels safe for going to the veterans. And we've seen that a bunch of times over. Again, curious to know what you guys think in your comments as well, what you think. Craig always good to see you right here. Craig says Luca had a great start again. He did, Craig, and he always does.

He has a great start. I mean, you've got to think that NBA teams know what Luca is going to do early on because it never changes. And Luca was great. I mean, it was absolutely great. And you're happy as wearing that Laker uniform. For all the criticism, Luca has received, whether it was playing in the NBA finals and getting traded to the Lakers for his lack of defense, tonight was maybe his best defensive effort we've seen with everything he had. And it's not easy playing defense when you're on the perimeter,

especially when you have so many good athletes around you. Luca did a fantastic job. Also, Reeves took a lot of shots, I guess it says, or stars. Reeves man is tough. All I can say about Reeves is that Reeves is tough. And Reeves, I think, probably hits the floor more than any other player in this league and whether it's drawing charges or for Reeves, it's his chance to sit there and do something offensively

when people don't expect it. He plays hard. And you saw him and Oz Reed going back and forth, talking a lot of trash. I love it. I love the fact that Austin Reeves doesn't back down. I love the fact that Austin Reeves is in a Laker uniform. I'm glad he's going to be in a Laker uniform for a while.

But he plays hard. He's the kind of basketball player that obviously, you know, is a person that's from the middle of the country and it's a lot more physical basketball. I tell you right now, when I played basketball and I'm not, didn't play at an NBA level, but I played in both Tennessee, and I played it in California.

And in California, it was more about speed and in the Midwest and in the South. It is more about fundamentals and being physical and boxing out and taking charges, and it is doing the fundamental things you can do. And Austin Reeves reminds me of those guys that grew up in Indiana, and I know he's not from Indiana,

but he's one of those guys that is tough as nails. And if you weren't tough on the court, you're going to hear it from your dad or your neighbors that you weren't tough. And Austin Reeves is a throwback. Austin Reeves could have played in any era at any time, and the Lakers are lucky to have them. So here's the deal. Lakers win.

I mean, that's the most important thing. The Lakers won, and for me, I'm super excited about it. I think the Lakers are going to take control of this series in game three, and the Lakers will move on. Minnesota, I know we'll say the same thing. But I think if you're the Lakers, you feel like you have a lot more answers

in the series than what Minnesota is thinking, getting on that plane right now, thinking, hey, I don't know what team we really are. What is your identity? We talk about that all the time. What is your identity as a team? The Lakers know with their best defensive effort and the shots start to fall, the Lakers will be fine. Another thing is the Lakers aren't going to get rattled by being on the road when they go to Minnesota.

Yeah, the crowd's going to be extremely loud and they're going to be supporting their team. But when you have the veterans, the Lakers have, it doesn't make a difference. The Lakers at that stage of their careers, they don't hear the crowd. It's all about execution and following the game plan, taking care of business, and moving on. And so it's awesome right now. What happened tonight was really a good deal for the Lakers. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in game three and the rest of this series. Let's pick our locked on player of the game. This is the locked on player of the game.

It's surprised at all. Our locked on player of the game, it's Luca. Luca tonight not only stepped up defensively, as we just said, but in 41 minutes, Luca had 31 points. He had 12 rebounds. He had nine assists, and Luca made all of his free throws. 11-11 from the free throw line was great. When the Lakers needed Luca, the Luca was there. And to know that Lucas, as young as he is, and we'll probably be wearing a Laker uniform for the next 10 years,

this is a great situation where he had a chance, basically, to make his mark in a Laker uniform. As a Lakers make a run throughout the playoffs, Luca is going to be a huge part of it, a bigger part than anyone else on this roster. And that's weird to say, when you have LeBron James on a team, with Luca, but Luca is the star of this Lakers team.

He's your go-to guy right now and probably be a go-to guy for a while. I think it's been a long time that LeBron's been waiting for someone else to take over when they need to. I think LeBron thought that was going to be Anthony Davis at one time, but it's not. It's Luca is the one that is the guy to lead this team when things get tough or when you need someone basically to change the momentum of a game. Luca can score from anywhere on the court, so it's no surprise that Luca is your player of the game. Also, don't forget this show and every other locked on show can be heard anywhere you get your podcast. At the same time, if you want to get your Laker coverage every single day, Brian and Andy,

they have all of your Laker coverage for you every single day. I'm here with you on these postcasts. Happy to talk Laker basketball with you for the people that join in the comments. I appreciate you. Craig, B.C., you guys have been great all season long and everyone else that joins in the comments as well. It's always fun to share these victories with you. but I do appreciate my time with you guys and hope to see you on Friday after a big Laker win in game three. Again, final score tonight from crypto.com arena Lakers 94.

It's Minnesota 85 series tied 1-1. Have a great night, everybody.