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Once again, excitement became embarrassment.
Once again, a promise was broken.
Once again, the Lakers weren’t fast enough or skilled enough or deep enough or strong enough.
Once again, blowing up in the first round of the playoffs for the third time in five years, the Lakers just weren’t good enough.
But it’s rarely felt this bad.
Rarely has Crypto.com Arena been as quiet during a playoff game as it was Wednesday in the final minute of a 103-96 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
With 39 seconds left, fans silently filled the aisles and literally turned their back on their beloved Lakers, who historically dropped thisseries four games to one.
Historically, because it was the first time the Lakers lost a first-round series as a No. 3 or higher seed.
No, they never folded this dramatically.
“Disappointment,” LeBron James said. “Unfulfillment.”
The Lakers faltered again in the fourth quarter and were eliminated from the playoffs with a loss to the Timberwolves.
He could say that again. Disappointment in that they finished the regular season as one of the best teams in the league. Unfulfillment in that many thought they were worthy of a march toward a championship.
They lost even though they thrilled their fans and frightened the league with their February addition of Luka Doncic.
They lost even though 40-year-old James was inspired by the addition of his son, Bronny, and had one of his most complete seasons.
They lost even though Austin Reaves had a breakout season as a scorer worthy of giving the Lakers a legitimate Big Three.
They lost even though it was generally agreed that coach JJ Redick was having an outstanding rookie season.
They lost because Minnesota was everything they wanted to be but were not.
They lost because Minnesota was tougher in the clutch, outscoring the Lakers by 42 points in the series’ five fourth quarters.
They lost because Minnesota wasn’t about the hype, the Timberwolves were about the struggle, the battle for each possession, doubling the Lakers’ second-chance points Wednesday, competing in each individual battle as if it were their last.
They lost because Minnesota was stronger in the paint, dominating the Lakers so thoroughly that Wednesday’s leading scorer was defensive specialist Rudy Gobert, who had 27 points and 24 rebounds against a defenseless Lakers interior.
Minnesota was more of a team, more collaborative, more together, more committed.
“They were just the better team this series, to be honest,” Dorian Finney-Smith said.
The game was played as if the Lakers already were beaten, as if their pregame chant was a reprise of former guard Nick Van Exel’s infamous “1-2-3 Cancun!” chant in 1998 before the Lakers were swept by the Utah Jazz.
The Lakers were on the brink of elimination, yet it was the Timberwolves who played with desperation. The Lakers were on the verge of ending their season on their home court, yet it was the Timberwolves who played with all the passion.
The Timberwolves jumped to a 14-point lead in the first quarter and settled into a 10-point lead at halftime with an even bigger edge in body language.
The Lakers came back to briefly take the lead in the third quarter and even led by a point on a Doncic rainbow jumper with 6:29 remaining in the fourth, but what ensued was typical of a team that had no idea how to play with its back against the wall.
James airball. Gobert follow-up dunk. Maxi Kleber — what was he doing in the game? — miss. James miss. Doncic miss. James miss. Kleber stepped on the baseline. And so on.
The game ended appropriately with Minnesota’s Naz Reid grabbing an offensive rebound off a missed free throw and hugging the ball like Minnesota hugged this victory.
That fourth quarter showed some of the Lakers’ vulnerability, starting with James’ age. He clearly wore down as he made just two baskets combined in the last two fourth quarters.
Then there was Reaves, who had a generally lousy series with five baskets in the five fourth quarters and missed eight of 10 three-pointers in the deciding game.
When the UConn coach turned down a $70-million job offer to come to L.A., it might have been humiliating for the storied franchise but it ignited a rebirth.
“You can point the finger at me,” Reaves said. “I didn’t play good enough for us to be successful.”
Reaves is right. He was their biggest disappointment. But help could be coming for all of them.
While any first-round loss is a stain on the Lakers’ legacy, at least this loss comes with hope.
Hope that this team is not far from being a championship team. Hope that this coach is not far from being an outstanding coach. Hope that they are closer to greatness than this loss would indicate.
Remember, for all of their veteran savvy, this team is still a relative toddler, the two best players having been together barely three months and their coach in his first year.
“We just probably need a little more time together,” Finney-Smith said.
James and Doncic will mesh better next season if both return, and both are expected to return.
James has all but confirmed he wants to end his career as a Laker, so he’s not expected to use his player option to flee, and he’s aged so incredibly, even his biggest critics must acknowledge he should stay.
In recent years this space repeatedly called for James to be traded, but no more. This year he proved that his entertainment value outweighs any burden his contract places on the roster, and now that he has the exciting Doncic as his running mate, his veteran leadership actually could lead to one more title in the probable two years before he calls it quits.
“I don’t have an answer to that,” James said late Wednesday when asked about retirement. “We’ll see.”
He always says that. And he’s always returned.
Doncic also could leave by expressing such unhappiness that the Lakers would be forced to trade him before his contract expires after next season, but he seems to like it here.
Doncic constantly has expressed great respect for the franchise and its grandiose history, and this week he put his money behind that respect by contributing $5,000 to the restoration of a graffiti-scarred Kobe Bryant mural. This, after he paid for parking for many Lakers fans on the night of his debut.
Doncic is a top-five talent, he’s fun, he’s embraceable, he’s the perfect person to lead the Lakers into the next era.
If Doncic is actually given a preseason to work with James and Reaves, who knows what they can accomplish?
“Any time you make a big acquisition in the middle of the season it’s always going to be challenging,” James said. “The whole dynamic changed. I still don’t think we had enough time to mesh.”
All they need is … you guessed it … a center.
Times columnist Bill Plaschke, like many once a critic of the Lakers drafting LeBron James’ oldest son, looks back on his rookie year as an ingenious move.
“No comment,” James said. “My guy [Anthony Davis] said what he needed and he was gone the following week.”
And thus Rob Pelinka, their newly minted president of basketball operations with a newly extended contract, has been given his summer marching orders.
Find somebody who will ensure that Gobert doesn’t become Michael Jordan.
Find the one big thing that also would maximize Doncic’s talent and take this team to the next level.
Luka needs a lob partner. He needs a rim protector. He needs the sort of big man he had in Dallas when he led the Mavericks to that improbable NBA Finals appearance.
Everyone thought the Lakers had this big man this winter when Pelinka followed Doncic’s stunning acquisition with a trade for Charlotte’s Mark Williams.
But then the Lakers got cold feet. They worried that they overpaid for Williams, worried that he was too immature for their smart, veteran system, and eventually that worry turned a bad physical exam into a deal killer.
They gave Williams back to Charlotte, and Jaxson Hayes was given the job, and by Wednesday night he wasn’t even trusted to play a minute, and so now Pelinka is back to square one.
Find a center.
“We couldn’t get rebounds,” Rui Hachimura said. “We need somebody to get rebounds.”
The Lakers so obviously need that somebody, on Wednesday night they were even trolled by Williams on X.
Redick also should be better next season. He was surprisingly adept in his rookie year as a coach at any level but scuffled in the postseason. He was publicly questioned by Magic Johnson after the Lakers’ Game 1 loss, and then questioned by the rest of the basketball world after playing the same five players the entire second half of the Game 4 loss.
“I can get a lot better,” Redick said.
His team thought he was just fine.
“JJ will continue to grow,” James said. “He had a helluva campaign for a rookie coach. I thought he handled it extremely well.”
These Lakers should continue to grow. They’d better. For all of their success, for all of their promise, the 2024-25 season can be summed up only one way.
They were entertaining, they were intriguing and they were a failure.
All things Lakers, all the time.
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