Gone after 5: Lakers, Magic, Bucks

MINNESOTA 4, LOS ANGELES LAKERS 1

Turns out the Lakers were tired. Tired from getting their asses kicked all up and down the court by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Those victorious Wolves didn't flout a distinct advantage but the defense sustained, Minnesota featuring supreme interior disruption from Rudy Gobert. The Lakers didn't dare drive and when Lakers did, drives were not deft. Pleas were made to referees, referees were not moved, swayed.

A few times the refs were convinced, this is the Lakers, they are in Los Angeles, but less so when the Lakers had the ball. The Lakers betrayed their own thoughts, belief in those diminishing hopes, repeatedly launching over Minnesota rather than darting inside, hoping instead of scoring. The refs caught on.

Another hefty turnover game for the Lakers, 15 in the loss. Minnesota ganks the 73-54 edge in the series, inescapable setbacks for favored Los Angeles. Luka Dončić adds to the deficit, gives up on transition attempts to yell at refs, bails on his own shot to add to his own flop. Busted, as a rule, defensively.

The Lakers worked eight players and one of them was Maxi Kleber. Maxi has a broken foot and lifelong issues as a pivotman defending spread offense and it showed. The Laker bench missed all four attempts from the floor, Austin Reaves turned it over six times and missed 8-1o threes in Game 5, Rui Hachimura kept the Lakers in it and after a while Rui Hachimura didn't want to keep the Lakers in it, Minnesota made sure.

It was the close of a series and everyone played like it. Minnesota missed 40 three-pointers in 47 attempts. Nickeil Alexander-Walker somehow got nine up, missing two (NAW attempted nine or more threes only seven times in 86 games so far in 2024-25), Anthony Edwards clanged 11 of them in 11 attempts.

The defense was tremendous: 66 missed three-pointers bouncing off the goal in Game 5 and nobody broke a nose, everybody defended their face.

The Timberwolves didn't relent with a 3-1 lead, only relaxed. Didn't press when the long shots went sour, settled in and tossed the ball to Julius Randle. Watched, as the Lakers decided to lay off Julius' right hand, 23 points and four dimes for Randle. Rudy, meanwhile, dunked everything he could, 27 points with 24 rebounds, nine on the offensive end.

We thought, with the extended break between games, with the decreasing numbers in the Laker rotation, that J.J. Redick's Laker team would have a greater understanding as to which direction they wanted to point toward regarding the whole who's gonna get under Rudy?-thing.

Nobody stuck to Rudy, Rudy ran wild.

Nobody thought the Los Angeles Lakers' season would come down to Maxi Kleber's ongoing inability to mind the rim, but here we are, there we were.

It didn't come down to that: Luka took long and desperate three-pointers and on subsequent possessions LeBron James confirmed that he liked that idea. Reaves had plenty of chances to break his cold snap, the Lakers had plenty of rest, a few extra minutes in the final two games did not weary Los Angeles.

The damned Wolves did, running around, left-handers everywhere. No heroics from Anthony Edwards, no forever-images to recall as LeBron left and Ant stayed on.

Defense (Ant had 11 rebounds) and communication (Ant dished eight assists) and enough serenity to last 43 minutes at age 43 for Edwards.

Jaden McDaniels was in foul trouble all evening, Naz Reid didn't run his usual route, Minnesota's lineup variations were nearly as frantic as J.J. Redick's. Anthony Edwards had to remain on the floor and sustain connections with seven other teammates and in that regard, he wholly outplayed LeBron James and Luka Dončić.

ONE BAD THING ABOUT THE LAKERS NOT WINNING A TITLE

A t-shirt reading 'Dončić Wins Championships' would be awfully funny.

Print this slogan if you want but don't wear it in certain areas of Texas unless you want to become a strain of seasoned jerky.

WOULD MARK WILLIAMS HELP

J.J. Redick would have benched Mark Williams by March.

DID NICO HARRISON STILL MAKE THE WORST TRADE EVER?

Did Maxi Kleber play more playoff minutes than Anthony Davis?

Is the Pope ... well, we don't know what direction they're going there, but we have an idea.

As long as bears do a doo-doo in the woods, we will do that to the terrible trade Nico Harrison made.

BOSTON 4, ORLANDO 1

The Magic are, were, a real Know Your Personnel-club. They move to the correct player at the correct time in a bid to influence that player into doing exactly what the Orlando Magic hope that person(nel) does.

The irony and yes it is irony in this entire series is that Boston utilized this advantage to perfection in the breakaway second half in Game 5. Trapping Orlando within its own limitations, backing off and asking the Magic to shoot from the outside.

The Magic want to be the Celtics badly but can't be, couldn't be. The Magic have two bucket-getters at forward, but the Celtics have two scorers at the same position.

Boston's initial dry run from outside in Game 5 was not characteristic, the team missed all six of its three-pointers in the first half, six three-pointers in the first half? Who was out there, Sherman Douglas?

The "six" was more offensive than the ohfer: Joe Mazzulla probably threatened laps on Wednesday if his team didn't push 20 three-point attempts in the second half. The Celtics made 13-18, helmed in by the decency of extended garbage time. Orlando's foul trouble robbed the Magic of its best chance, it is true, but the storm was on.

The Magic provided the template, cut off Boston's volume. The problem is Orlando is barely audible from long range, the Magic missed all 11 three-pointers in Game 5's third quarter. Boston did that, closing out, but Orlando also did that to themselves.

Orlando made the playoffs and took a game from the defending champs while ranking lowest in the NBA in three-point percentage, a massive accomplishment and also an extreme, rather rare, mitigating factor. The deficiency was what most expected the Magic to bury themselves with and it took hold, Orlando managed but 26 percent from deep in this series.

Boston took the rest. The Celtics lost two starters to injury in this series, a miserable scenario for a team with an expected six weeks of basketball left to play, yet Boston's momentum could not be more palpable.

The Celtics are the rare defending champion that isn't sick of itself, basketball, the coach, the other guy in the seat on the bus, everything. Holding up to the intense scrutiny of the nerd-out Orlando Magic was exactly what this group needed, no pass, no fast forward to the Eastern semifinals.

Orlando has its own pick No. 16 and Denver's. Denver is about where everyone thought Denver would be in 2025 when it made the Aaron Gordon deal (selecting at No. 25) back in March 2021, because Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic, what a pair.

I'd like to use this space to apologize to Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg for failing to notice the Heat do have a first-round pick in 2025, the Warriors', slotted for No. 20.

INDIANA 4, MILWAUKEE 1

Deeply undignified way for the Bucks to leave 2024-25, the team deserved better than the ball leaking through Gary Trent Jr.'s legs, Gary was the only reason the Bucks were even around, Gary didn't deserve the trickle. The fellas in the Buck lineup worked hard. Even and especially the ones maligned for serving as unsuitable performers to surround Milwaukee's star.

Giannis Antetokounmpo didn't deserve the heckle from anyone, let alone someone who should know better (the associate of a professional athlete), and I don't know what we did to deserve such an odd end to a sad series.

Don't stay sad. Brook Lopez didn't.

Want NBA mascots and Lopez Twins to get along? Start the game at 6 PM, over quickly enough to get home for cereal and cartoons.

Rick Carlisle's team played against the Damian Lillard-less Bucks for all of Game 1 and most of Game 4 and it showed in Game 5. The Pacers knew the sets and rotations and personnel even if the Bucks jumbled the starting lineup: Lopez, out, Kyle Kuzma, "sixth man." No Ryan Rollins as Lillard replacement, some submission to orthodoxy. Rather, a submission to mediocrity: Kevin Porter Jr., riding with his weak sauce.

The Bucks lost it down the stretch of its final game in much the same way Los Angeles lost its season, center-less, pivot-poor. It wasn't necessary for Milwaukee to put Brook Lopez on the floor in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, he often isn't, even in his sprightlier seasons. However, it was necessary for Milwaukee to have a clue, and they didn't, not when Kevin Porter Jr. is down in the paint, creating complaints, establishing excuses.

Milwaukee gave up fourth quarter dunks and layups to the opposing point guard when it was supposed to be saving its season. Meanwhile, Carlisle drops Tyrese Haliburton from a game-closing lineup when he needs a stop, Haliburton doesn't blink nor moan, Ben Sheppard and his mustache go out and get the job done.

In all, I thought the Indianapolis fans did a great job of counting to ten, though as you'd expect the rhythm was a little off.

Milwaukee's next steps are not obvious, and have more to do with business than hoops. We'll either cover the Giannis trade when it happens, or make up fake Giannis trades in September because we've run out of 1990s power forwards to write about.

LITTLE GIRL IN BLOOM

Not my favorite lyric but the music is straight out of 1994.

Thank you for reading!