Game 2 Adjustments: How the Lakers Can Respond

Matchups, tactics, court geometry, and other fun stuff

Photo by Ronald Martinez / Getty Images

The Los Angeles Lakers opened their 2025 playoff campaign with a dud—falling 117–95 at home to the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1. It wasn’t just the loss, but how it happened: outplayed, outworked, and out-executed throughout most of the night. Now the pressure’s on. Game 2 is as close as it gets to a must-win, because going to Minneapolis down 0–2 against a locked-in, confident and hungry Wolves squad would be a very dangerous spot to be in.

Game 2 is always about first adjustments. And this time, it’s J.J. Redick and his team who need to respond after taking the first punch. The best and most straightforward adjustment in the NBA is always the same: just play better. Stars, role players, coaching staff—everyone on the Lakers needs to raise their level. But playoff games are also tactical chess matches, and when we talk about possible adjustments, we can go a bit deeper than just “play better.”

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Today’s highlights:

1. Set the tone with physicality, force, and focus

2. Control the pace through better offense and more discipline 📊

3. Smarter offense I: Targets of attack (🎞️VIDEO)

4. Smarter offense II: Angles of attack (🎞️VIDEO)

5. Probably a 'too-early-to-pull-the-trigger' adjustment

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1-Set the tone with physicality, force, and focus

Earlier this season, Redick talked about his realization that the only real cheat code in the NBA is playing hard. I won’t spend too many words on how the Lakers need to play much harder—and from the very beginning. In my Game 1 notes, I wrote that it took them nearly three quarters to figure that out. They finally brought the right level of physicality for a stretch in the third and fourth quarters, but by then it was too late.

Apart from the shooting, the Lakers also lost both the rebounding and turnover battles in Game 1—meaning they lost the overall possession game too. They’ll have to flip that tonight.

Some Lakers simply need to play much harder. Rui Hachimura, for example, struggled with the speed and physicality in the first matchup. Gabe Vincent has to set the tone with his on-ball pressure. Per tracking data, the Wolves’ average pickup distance was 46 feet—compared to just 35 feet for the Lakers. Others, like Jarrett Vanderbilt, need to play with more focus and discipline. Vando is an agent of chaos on defense, which can be a weapon—but in Game 1, he was caught out of position or overhelping too often. The Wolves punished those mistakes with their outstanding shooting night. They did the same against the overzealous fly-by closeouts from nearly every other Laker. The Lakers started Game 1 flat, then overreacted to the Wolves' hot shooting. We’ve seen them be much better at flying around and scrambling on defense, so in Game 2, they need to find the right balance between playing with force and maintaining attention to detail.

2-Control the pace through better offense and more discipline 📊

The Lakers’ struggles with transition defense have been ongoing and well documented here. They don’t have the athletes to keep up with most teams in the open floor, so they have to limit opponents’ easy opportunities by scoring at a much higher rate (more on that in the next points), and by being more disciplined with how they crash the offensive glass and get back to contain the ball in transition.

It’s hard to expect the Lakers to win the fast break battle—they’ve done that only three times in their last 27 games. But the margin needs to be much closer to zero than the minus-19 they posted on Saturday.

Once again, the best way for the Lakers to control the pace is to be much better on the offensive end and force the Wolves to play against a set defense.

3–Smarter offense I: Targets of attack (🎞️VIDEO)

Minnesota’s switching defense forced the Lakers into a lot of stagnant isolation basketball, and yesterday Redick mentioned that they need to create a better, more organized environment for those situations. I would add—organized doesn’t just mean structured, it also means purposeful. I’d look to play with more pace in the half-court and run more Dončić–James–Reaves three-man actions to accomplish that.

The other part of being purposeful is being more surgical with the selection of targets. I think the Lakers need to find better ways to punish the Wolves’ smaller players—Conley, Alexander-Walker, DiVincenzo, even Anthony Edwards—with James, rather than focusing so much on attacking bigs like they did in Game 1.

In Dončić’s case, the encouraging takeaway from Game 1 was that he had no trouble creating separation and angles against Rudy Gobert (a positive trend that carried over from the final two weeks of the regular season). He either scored or generated good looks in isolation—aside from a missed foul call on the final clip.

A lot has been made of Dončić finishing Game 1 with just one assist. But if he can keep attacking Gobert and other bigs and score early against the switch, it could force the Wolves to adjust—abandoning straight switches and showing more aggressive coverages. Once they start sending extra help on ball screens, the 4-on-3s, open looks for others, and the assists will follow. Chris Finch did try more aggressive coverages against Dončić on a few possessions later in the game, after his 16-point first-quarter outburst. But by then, the Lakers were already in a deep hole and mostly failed to capitalize on the rare opportunities.

4–Smarter offense II: Angles of attack (🎞️VIDEO)