The kids committed vandalism this past Saturday night in downtown Los Angeles. They’ve been running together for a while now, a trio with the street names of Naz, Ant and Slim, although we’ve also heard their hype men variously call them Big Jelly, Two Words, Ant-Man and Seatbelt. The court formally knows them as Naz Reid, Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels.
They went into Crypto.com Arena in front of thousands of people and defaced the mystique of the Lakers, one of the most cherished assets of the City of Los Angeles, especially since the acquisition of Luka Doncic to further buttress the luster of Lebron James. Although they coolly deny it, the kids harbor a grudge against Mr. Doncic, who notoriously shamed them just last year while running with a different crew.
But what happened to Mr. James is not merely collateral damage. His exalted presence is vital to the Lakers mystique. He helped secure the Lakers 17th crown, after earning three other crowns for organizations in two other locations. In the wake of the prolonged incident on Saturday night, he alleged that he, Mr. Doncic and the rest of crew upholding the mystique, were victims of superior physicality – in a word, bullied.
There were plenty of warnings that the kids, who collectively are regarded as the future of their crew known as the Wolves, were coming into Crypto intent on doing serious damage. But for the most part, people dismissed the threat. Recent evidence of their work indicated that they lacked the maturity, character and cohesion to significantly besmirch the Lakers’ exalted reputation.
But following Saturday night that status quo is up for reassessment. The kids and their brethren on the Wolves had some shaky moments early in the opening game of their 2024-25 first round playoff series, and some shrouded circumstances later in the game that harkened back to previous inadequacies during the season, when, bereft of poise, they let things slip away.
But this time they didn’t flinch. They didn’t “steal” Game One and the home court advantage in the series that comes with it; they contested proper ownership of it and proved that the game belonged to them. And because their poise was as proactive as their physicality, there was no “clutch” time engagement necessary in what became a 117-95 thrashing that at least temporarily vandalized the Lakers mystique and the general consensus about how this series would unfold.
It would seem that this season’s Wolves, led by the kids, are finally old enough to know better.
In retrospect, the miserable start to Saturday’s game seems like a sordid means for the Wolves to cleanse their immaturity. They had spent the week between the end of the regular season and the onset of the Lakers series, planning, practicing and preaching to the media about how they would perform smart, selfless hoops with crisp efficiency and purpose. Then they spent an unfortunate chunk of the first quarter reneging on the message and shirking from what the moment required.
They scored seven points in seven minutes, committing four turnovers that showcased yips under pressure (two passes that sailed over the sidelines and into the audience) and reversion to a chronically bad habit (dribbling into a crowd of defenders).
They stood around and watched the Lakers snatch two offensive rebounds and convert them into five second-chance points. They watched Doncic conjure nightmares of last year’s Western Conference Finals by moving into his preferred work station between the perimeter defense and Rudy Gobert’s rim protection. They watched some more as their teammates dribbled fruitlessly, and did next-to-nothing to create spacing to help them out. The lone assists in those first seven minutes were a handoff and a three-foot pass, both made as two Timberwolves congregated out beyond the three-point arc.
The remedy came from the bench, specifically Naz and Donte DiVincenzo (DDV), the two players who most naturally adhere to the hallmarks of Coach Chris Finch’s preferred approach to offense: Make quick decisions while moving the ball when you have it and moving without the ball when you don’t have it.
After the game, Finch correctly described their impact as a “jolt at the right time,” noting that Naz in particular “came in aggressive and got us some easy buckets when we couldn’t find anything else. His activity, quick decision-making for us, got to the hoop, shot the ball and did a really good job of moving.”
For the first time in the game the Wolves were pushing the pace from the defensive rebound unbroken through a shot at the rim, putting a mediocre-at-best Lakers defense on its heels. One of the charms of DDV is how he parlays his tenacious gusto for rebounds into a dribble-sprint up the court, a terrific complement to Naz, who thrives on the go, and finishes with more authority on the drive. He knifed through for a layup and came back later with a short hook shot.
The 15-7 Laker lead when the duo entered had been nicked to only 28-21 as the quarter ended, but the lethargy had been chased away and the battle joined on much better terms during those five minutes. It primed the pump for a monster second quarter that transformed the game.
Naz flipped his skill set from driver to bomber, parceling out a quartet of three-pointers with that rapid-fire, shrug motion; giving the Wolves their first lead on a splash from 29-feet out two minutes into the period, then steadily bumping the margin by making himself available with movement out on the perimeter. Between his second and third trey of the quarter, he added a highlight block of King James himself, somehow stuffing Lebron’s 260-pound freight train without fouling.
The dozen points on four shot-attempts by Naz triggered a 26-6 Wolves run, but equally important to the command performance in this stretch was McDaniels dominating on the inside.
As I have written before, the most hopeful phenomenon to happen this season in terms of the Wolves’ long-term development has been the emergence of McDaniels as a player to be reckoned with on offense. He was the lone member of the starting five to show a pulse at the beginning of the game.
“He kept us hanging around until we could find a rhythm” is the way Finch put it.
And in the second quarter he abetted Naz’s barrage with nine points in the first four minutes of the period, the bulk of them via muscle flex.
McDaniels manhandled Austin Reaves for a turnaround jumper on the right block, took a feed from Mike Conley for a three-pointer and then finished off the flurry with a pair of putbacks. On the first one he went up in traffic to grab the offensive rebound, went up again with a Laker arm on the ball coming with him as he forced it through the hoop. On the second one his short midrange hit front iron and he snagged the carom in rhythm for the follow-through.
The stint was the most potent capsule in a steady diet of highlights, as he finished with 25 points after making all three of his shots from distance and 8 for 10 of his two pointers, grabbed nine rebounds, doled out two assists with a steal and zero turnovers, all while being the primary defender on Doncic at the other end. In the 33 minutes and 18 seconds he played, the Wolves outscored the Lakers by 27 points. In the 14:42 he sat, L.A. had a three-point advantage.
Appropriately, McDaniels and Naz were the first player-pair at the podium to be interviewed by the press after the game. Jaden was typically succinct – he typically answers questions with the matter-of-fact reluctance of a prisoner of war – but still managed to drop the most revealing insight of all the participants, addressing his reaction to Lakers center Jaxson Hayes getting only eight minutes of playing time as L.A. leaned into smallball.
“If (Jaxson Hayes) isn’t out there, I’m basically the tallest person out there,” he observed. “I don’t think no one can rim-protect (against) me if Jaxson Hayes isn’t out there.”
Understand that McDaniels, who is 6-foot, 9-inches tall with a huge wingspan, is the Wolves small forward. The idea behind the Lakers playing smallball is to “force Rudy Gobert off the court,” a subject of much speculation before the series began.
Many fewer people noted that if the 7-footer Hayes is on the sideline, the Wolves still have McDaniels and Julius Randle (also 6-foot, 9-inches) as the forwards; and even if they decide the quicker Lakers unit isn’t the best fit for Rudy, they can insert Naz, who is also 6-foot, 9-inches.
After the game, the narrative the Lakers told themselves was that they weren’t physical enough. Yes, that can absolutely be a mindset issue. But length matters – and mattered during Game One.
The third member of the “kids” – the three youngest members of the Timberwolves core, eight-player rotation – is Ant, the superstar. On Saturday he had a bifurcated game, setting exactly the wrong tone with his hesitation and stasis for most of the first half, and then bringing the energetic balance of scoring and playmaking to the fore in the second half.
When I asked Finch about the discrepancy, and whether anything was said to Ant at halftime, the coach chose his words carefully.
“Ant was really vocal at halftime. He knew, he knew what was going on by that time – I think he had gotten comfortable with it then. Some of the stuff that we saw early, we weren’t quite expecting some of it from him. But I think he was just surveying in the first half a lot. And he let that slow him down. But I think he was more aggressive (in the second half) and he had that look in his eyes that he gets, and he was really good.”
Correct on both counts. In the first half, Ant played into the hands of the opponents’ strategy, shooting 3 for 8 from two-point range by driving into defenders packed in the paint, and 0 for 1 from behind the arc. Some of it was the failure of his teammates to move – all three of his first-half assists came after Naz and DDV checked in – but is revealing that the Wolves were outscored by a point in his 18:28 of playing time in the first half and plus 12 in the 5:32 he was on the bench.
In the second half the offense was flowing the way it was planned and practiced all week and Ant assumed his rightful place in the heart of it. He still struggled trying to score inside, shooting 1 for 5 inside the three-point arc, but nailed half of his eight attempts from long-range. More to the point he engaged the game more comprehensively, getting six or his nine assists without a single turnover, six of his eight rebounds, and his lone steal. The Wolves were plus 22 in the 16:57 he logged and minus 11 in the 7:03 he sat.
The Lakers mystique has been punctured and the narrative of their superstar-studded supremacy now switches to how they recover. The Wolves have demonstrated that their size is a problem for L.A., especially if they couple it with constant movement to free up shooters, and pass the ball with the rhythm and purpose that finds those players who are open.
This is a better-balanced Timberwolves team than it was a year ago. While they lack the edge and full-scale commitment to a stifling defensive identity, they boast a more versatile offense that will be an ongoing challenge for a Lakers team whose three best players – Doncic, Lebron and Reaves – are better on offense than on defense.
That said, nobody should expect a repeat of Saturday night. The Lakers have extraordinary top-end talent, and the experience and resourcefulness of both Doncic and Lebron are elite.
If I were to guess on adjustments, I’d say Luka and the Lakers will adjust the emphasis of his offense – he had 37 points and just one assist in Game One – and maybe even get Reaves and perhaps Lebron more engaged by letting them initiate some of the offense while Luka affects the gravity of the Wolves defense by playing off the ball just enough to complicate schemes. And on defense, I predict L.A. will follow through on their vow of more intentional physicality by playing Jarred Vanderbilt (and Hayes) more often, which also helps their size.
It is suddenly shaping up to be a long series. The kids are OK with that. Asked after the vandalism of Game One what he has to say to all the people who picked the Lakers to win and move on to the second round, Naz replied, “I wouldn’t say nothing. Just watch. I really like to play. It is what it is.”
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