off-court family issues<\/a> became news. He made just one of his first eight shots, but he stayed composed. His self-control would eventually be rewarded, as Don\u010di\u0107 finished with 31 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. The Lakers were 20 points better than Minnesota in his minutes.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/luka-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Luka Don\u010di\u0107 had 31 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists Tuesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves, as the Los Angeles Lakers earned their sixth win in their seven games. (Allen J. Schaben \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
It also didn\u2019t matter that Reaves got off to another slow start against a physical defense, something his critics have grabbed hold of as he\u2019s gotten closer to his offseason payday. He made just 1 of 8 in the first half but put the Timberwolves away with 29 second-half points.<\/p>\n
Smart again did his part, stepping in to take on Anthony Edwards at full speed to begin the second half with a drawn charge. Rui Hachimura didn\u2019t stop trying to defend Julius Randle, even after he got called the first of his five fouls by having his chin get in the way of a quick elbow.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody that stepped on the court did an amazing job,\u201d Don\u010di\u0107 said. \u201cEverybody fought until the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even LeBron James, who missed his third consecutive game with foot and hip soreness, the latter happening late in the Lakers\u2019 tight loss in Denver last week, bounded off the bench in his street clothes to meet Luke Kennard after a tough transition bucket with joy all over his face. He undoubtedly was aware of the discussion about his impact on winning after the Lakers beat the Knicks without him. And he didn\u2019t seem even a little bothered that the Lakers were doing it again against Minnesota.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s real,\u201d Reaves said of that reaction.<\/p>\n
Pregame, head coach JJ Redick talked about the Lakers\u2019 balance issues that tend to show up more when they play with a \u201cbig three\u201d instead of just two.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen all three of those guys are on the court specifically, I think it goes back to the human element,\u201d Redick said. \u201cIt\u2019s what they\u2019re comfortable doing as basketball players, which for all three of those guys \u2026 it\u2019s having the ball in his hands. The human struggle to want what you want \u2026 while also having the emotional maturity and recognition that you have somebody next to you, it hasn\u2019t been as clean. There\u2019s a clear pecking order when LeBron, or when Luka and AR, are on the floor together with guys that are low-usage players. That\u2019s the nature of it. That\u2019s the nature of nearly every big three that\u2019s ever existed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redick, however, said he\u2019s seen enough lately to leave his belief fortified.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to get there,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen some positive signs, and I know LeBron, he recognizes the importance of having Luka as the engine. All he really wants is to impact winning. I\u2019ve said this now for the last two weeks: We\u2019re going to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Lakers had to feel better about Ayton\u2019s part in getting them there.\u00a0There have been games when he\u2019s been great, games when he\u2019s been bad, games when he\u2019s been invisible. But against Minnesota, the Lakers needed Ayton. They didn\u2019t have anywhere else to turn.<\/p>\n
Jaxson Hayes and Maxi Kleber, two players not listed on the Lakers\u2019 injury report Monday, were surprisingly scratched with back injuries. That left only two-way Drew Timme as another available big against a Minnesota team that knocked the Lakers and their small-ball lineups out of the playoffs a year ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great for his teammates to see him have a really good performance on both ends of the floor. I think it\u2019s bigger for DA to have a game like that against a really good team, one of the best teams in basketball,\u201d Redick said. \u201cHe\u2019s won us and helped win us a ton of games this year. During this stretch, there\u2019s been some ups and downs, but he was great (Tuesday). It\u2019s good for his confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playoff series aren\u2019t won in mid-March, and Redick\u2019s message to not overreact after Sunday\u2019s win against the Knicks held true after another dominant 48 minutes on Tuesday. Reaves said the Lakers will undoubtedly have games left on their schedule when it looks like it\u2019s falling apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we going to continue to trust the way we\u2019re doing it now will still work?\u201d Reaves asked.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s next. First, the Lakers had to be sure they were heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Of all the things that went right for the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-652647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-lakers","11":"tag-lakers","12":"tag-lalakers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleslakers","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116210566630011663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}