McDaniels leads the way for Minnesota in defense-led win over Lakers

By Jace Frederick, Pioneer Press – December 13, 2024

Burn the tapes, destroy all evidence of the contest, but deposit the victory all the same.

The Timberwolves won a rock fight against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday at Target Center, on a night where neither team performed particularly well.

It was a largely lethargic showing from both sides, with both teams coming off lengthy layoffs as a result of the in-season tournament. The Lakers committed 11 turnovers in the first quarter alone, and Minnesota also struggled to develop any sort of offensive rhythm for much of the evening.

But the Timberwolves outperformed their opponent just enough to take a 97-87 win.

The Lakers (13-12) certainly helped. Los Angeles finished with 22 giveaways. In a three-possession span in the closing minutes, the Lakers lost a rebound in which Anthony Davis and Rui Hachimura tied one another up for it, missed a pair of wide-open 3-pointers, and then watched as a missed Anthony Edwards’ free throw made its way back into his arms.

All of that allowed a five-point Wolves’ advantage to grow to 10 and effectively put the contest on ice.

So, Minnesota (13-11) emerged victorious on an evening where it shot 40% from the field and just 28% from 3-point range.

But that’s the way the Wolves have operated of late.

They haven’t scored 110 points in any of their last seven contests but are 5-2 in that stretch because they’ve recaptured some of the defensive excellence that carried them to last year’s Western Conference finals. The Lakers shot 38% from the floor Friday, and while Anthony Davis scored 23 points, he required 21 shots to do so. The defense has seemingly taken a jump as the offense took a major step back.

“If we get more wins and less Ls, it’s a good trade-off. I’ll take it,” Minnesota center Rudy Gobert said. “It might be a little uglier to watch, but at the end of the day, it’s who we are. We know it’s always going to be a work in progress, but we understand that when we compete defensively and we focus on the defense, we have a chance to win every night. And when we make shots and play a little better offensively, we probably win by 20. But even when we don’t, as long as we don’t turn the ball over too much, I think we’ll be in position to win every night.”

Jaden McDaniels’ resurgence on that defensive end of the floor has largely set the tone. The wing continued his strong play after a rough start to the campaign. McDaniels finished with 18 points, nine rebounds, a career-best five steals and two blocked shots.

He brought juice on a night when few else supplied it. McDaniels said after the layoff, he aimed to be Minnesota’s “spark.”

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch called the wing the “star of the game.” With LeBron James out for personal reasons, the Lakers lacked a perimeter player that McDaniels needed to lock down. That allowed him to star in other spots on the defensive end than which he’s accustomed, and he flourished in all aspects.

“I enjoy it, just to be able to me low man sometimes, be able to get blocks and stuff,” McDaniels said. “I don’t care where I’m at. I just try to do my best, for real.”

Anthony Edwards scored a team-high 23 points in spite of a sluggish start. Julius Randle added 21 points, and Gobert had 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Finch noted he hopes Minnesota’s current process of winning games with excellent defense and suspect offense is only the formula “for now.”

“I’ve seen this team really play much better offense. The first 10 games, I thought, were a really good indication, offensively, of what we could be,” Finch said. “Even when we’ve played good offense, we’ve just hit these dry spells, and then after the dry spells, we seem to go a little bit too one-on-one. So, we’ve got to go back to trusting the things that were working to get good