MINNEAPOLIS — The Lakers' season teetered on a single, fraying thread Sunday night. Not the missed three. Not the uncalled trip. Not the ghost of a rim protector they never acquired. No, it dangled by something far more damning: themselves.
They are what they do. And what they've done, relentlessly, ruthlessly, is unravel.
"We just didn't execute," coach JJ Redick sighed, his voice hollow, his eyes distant, after a 116-113 loss to Minnesota that left the Lakers staring down a 3-1 series abyss.
Execution requires discipline. Discipline requires habit. And the Lakers?
Their habits are written in neon: Careless. Complacent. Crumbling.
They allowed. They allowed. They allowed.
They allowed Anthony Edwards to morph into a fourth-quarter frenzy, his 16 points in the final frame outscoring the entire Lakers roster. They allowed 19 points off 12 turnovers—capitalized, weaponized, brutalized.
They allowed their offense to flatline, shooting 5-for-18 in the fourth, and their once-fluid attack was reduced to stagnant isolations and rushed prayers. They allowed their identity—a team built on talent, not tenacity—to calcify into a tombstone: Undone by their own hands.
"Fatigue shouldn't play a role," Luka Dončić insisted, his 38-point tour de force rendered meaningless by a 1-for-6 fourth quarter. But fatigue did. So did habit.
The Lakers have been a flickering bulb all season—bright one moment, dim the next. Slow rotations. Sloppy passes. Sporadic effort. A defense softer than a marshmallow. A rim protector? A myth. The ill-fated Dalton Knecht-Mark Williams trade rescinded at the eleventh hour, loomed large as Jaden McDaniels soared unchecked, his game-sealing steal a dagger dipped in déjà vu.
LeBron James' 27 points and 12 rebounds stood statuesque in the final minutes—scoreless, powerless, a king dethroned by time and his team's toxic tendencies.
He hunted contact and begged for calls, but the playoffs don't bow to royalty. The whistles vanished. The buckets dried up.
Meanwhile, Redick's gamble—playing five men the entire second half—backfired like a misfiring musket. "We asked them if they needed a sub," he said. They didn't. Or couldn't. Or wouldn't. The Lakers' legs turned to lead, their minds to fog. Edwards pounced. Randle prowled. McDaniels, the 6-foot-9 phantom, snatched victory from the ashes with a steal and a smirk.
The Lakers' sins are not singular but systemic.
They are a team that trades execution for excuses, poise for panic. A team that built a 10-point lead, then treated it like a hot potato. A team that lives and dies by the three. A team that, for all its star power, at times plays like strangers in a pickup game.
"They made one more play than us," Austin Reaves shrugged.
But this isn't about one play. It is about the totality of their season.
A season characterized by slow rotations, careless passes and stagnant offense.
"Our closeouts were god-awful, unforced turnovers… dribbling into traffic, it became a game of 'we got this three and we got to make it,'" Redick lamented.
Even Reaves' final shot—a corner three that felt "good" leaving his fingertips—was less a climax than a coda. A symbol of a team that almost… but never does.
The Lakers' margin for error evaporated weeks ago. Their margin for miracles? One game.
"The sun will come up tomorrow," Reaves said.
But in Los Angeles, the forecast grows darker by the hour. The Wolves, meanwhile, feast on the Lakers' fragility. Edwards, all swagger and sinew, smirked through postgame interviews. McDaniels, the quiet assassin, let his steal do the talking.
"It's a fun challenge," Dončić said, forcing a grin, when asked about the 3-1 deficit. But there's nothing fun about this. Nothing fun about habits hardening into fate. Nothing fun about a team that consistently does just enough to lose.
Will they rise? Or will they rot?
History whispers the answer. Habits scream it. The Lakers are what they are—a team that consistently does just enough to lose. And in the playoffs, consistency is a curse.
