Griffin Wong preps you for Game 2 between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Lakers with game-script analysis and Captain’s Picks.
One season after being effectively unstoppable until the NBA Finals, Luka Dončić ($12,800) could find himself in a precarious situation before he even plays a road playoff game with the Los Angeles Lakers. Of course, Los Angeles’ season won’t technically be over if it loses both of its home games, but it’ll be a difficult margin to come back from.
Tonight, then, is a must-win game for Dončić and the Lakers as they seek to exact revenge for Saturday’s 117-95 defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference playoff series.
Los Angeles is a six-point favorite for Game 2 at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set to 209.5. The Lakers are -230 on the Moneyline, while the Timberwolves are +190.
DraftKings is offering a Showdown contest for the big game, so I’ll take you through my two captain’s picks, two FLEX picks, and one fade. Let’s dive in:
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA Showdown $300K Fadeaway [$100K to 1st] (MIN @ LAL).
SHOWDOWN STRATEGY
Captain’s Picks
Luka Dončić ($19,200 CP) – Picking Dončić is pretty simple: there are two players in NBA history who have averaged at least 30 points, five rebounds, and five assists per game in their postseason careers: Dončić and Michael Jordan. Dončić was basically the only player in Los Angeles’ rotation who played well on Saturday night, as he recorded 37 points, eight rebounds, and one assist (52.5 FPTS) while shooting 50% from both the field and beyond the arc. Although he expressed disappointment after the game with only having dished out one assist, he had eight potential assists. While that’s a lower figure than the 13.7 potential assists per game he posted during the regular season, it also means that the Lakers simply didn’t hit their shots.
Either way, Dončić is clearly motivated — both by his self-perceived poor performance in Game 1 and by the repeated comments that members of the Dallas Mavericks organization have been making about him — and a motivated Dončić is a dangerous Dončić, as Minnesota arguably knows better than anybody. Even in the loss, Dončić controlled the game every time Los Angeles was on offense. If he says he’s going to get more than one assist, he’s going to get more than one assist, which means more fantasy points for DFS players. It also helps that his playoff usage rate is an all-time career record.
Naz Reid ($11,100 CP) – Reid, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, was arguably the most valuable player for the Timberwolves in Game 1, as he scored 23 points and converted six of his nine three-pointers (39.25 FPTS), playing six and a half more minutes than starting center Rudy Gobert ($12,600 CP). Along with Jaden McDaniels ($10,200 CP) and Julius Randle ($12,900 CP), Reid was pivotal in the upset, but his production shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise: he’s a career 37.3% three-point shooter. Plus, he has incredibly high upside for his value, which leaves nearly 80% of your budget to pair him with stars.
I already broke it down in more detail when I laid out my favorite prop bets for tonight’s game, but I like Reid to have another moderate-to-big game tonight. By and large, he took extremely high-quality shots on Saturday, with eight of his three-point attempts (and all of his makes) being attempted with the nearest defender more than six feet away. That was at least somewhat by design: the Lakers’ priority was to keep Anthony Edwards ($16,200 CP) from imparting significant damage, forcing him to kick out to shooters and daring Reid, McDaniels, and Randle to beat them. In Game 1, all three of those players did, but if they’d all shot merely average on wide-open threes — which, for Reid, would still mean he makes three triples — Los Angeles would’ve lost by just four. I wouldn’t expect a huge stylistic shift from JJ Redick.
FLEX Plays
Austin Reaves ($8,800) – With the exception of a run in the third quarter in which he scored 10 points in a four-minute stretch, Reaves was horrible on Saturday. He had only three assists and three rebounds, shot it inefficiently, turned the ball over twice, committed three fouls, and took several boneheaded shots in the fourth quarter. By game score, it was his 13th-worst performance of the season and his 27th-least efficient performance by true shooting percentage. Minnesota scored 140 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, although most of that can be attributed to McDaniels’ hot shooting.
All that is to say, there’s reason to believe that he’ll bounce back. It wasn’t like Chris Finch concocted some brilliant defensive scheme to slow him down, guarding him mostly with Donte DiVincenzo ($4,800), who might be the worst defender in the Timberwolves’ rotation. Reaves simply missed his shots and made a few bad decisions once the score got out of hand, mistakes that won’t necessarily translate from game to game. The three-man combination of him, Dončić, and Dorian Finney-Smith ($4,200) outscored opponents by 15.8 points per 100 possessions in the regular season and just 0.3 last night, while the similarly productive three-man group of him, James, and Rui Hachimura ($6,400) got dominated. Expect both of those to revert towards the mean.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker ($4,000) – Those who chose Dončić as captain will need a cheaper option, given that #77 will take up nearly 40% of your budget and the Lakers aren’t exactly the deepest team in the NBA. For that budget option, I’ll go with Alexander-Walker, a long-armed defensive ace, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s cousin, and the only member of Minnesota’s rotation to have a truly poor shooting night on Saturday. Only Edwards and Reid attempted more triples than Alexander-Walker’s six, but he only made one, despite all six of his attempts coming with the nearest defender more than four feet away. He made 37.8% of those shots during the regular season.
Because of his defensive versatility — he spent time guarding all 13 Los Angeles players who took the court on Saturday night — Alexander-Walker should receive at least the 20 minutes that he did in Game 1, and I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if he gets an uptick in playing time, which will give him more shots. The Timberwolves have been 3.4 points per 100 possessions better with him on the court through his first two and a half seasons with the team. Alexander-Walker does all the small things well, and one iteration of Minnesota’s small-ball lineup — him, Mike Conley ($4,400), McDaniels, Randle, and Reid — outscored Los Angeles by 137.5 points per 100 possessions in just under five minutes of court time.
Fades
Mike Conley ($4,400) – In a way, this is a three-part fade. Lakers center Jaxson Hayes ($3,600) was so horrendous in Game 1, finishing as a minus-11 in just eight minutes of playing time, that he can’t possibly be in the rotation tonight. Without him, Redick will likely have to shift to playing more small-ball, with either James, Finney-Smith, or Hachimura operating as the nominal center, and the size and shooting of that Los Angeles lineup theoretically can keep Rudy Gobert ($8,400) largely off the floor, as long as Finney-Smith and Hachimura are hitting their corner shots. That brings me to Conley: of his 10 most frequent five-man lineups during the regular season, the most productive five all featured Gobert. Ditto for the four-man and three-man groups; the southpaw is simply not very useful without the Stifle Tower.
But I’m not fading Gobert because he’s a four-time Defensive Player of the Year who can hold his own on both ends of the floor and has the size to compete. Plus, I don’t think the Lakers can play him off the floor entirely: he logged a still-solid 24 minutes in Game 1 after averaging 33 in the regular season, and Los Angeles’ players shot just six-for-17 when he defended them. Conley was an effective defender in Game 1, but at six-foot, 175 pounds, I have concerns about the 37-year-old’s ability to hold up against the Lakers’ jumbo lineup.
THE OUTCOME
Although it wasn’t entirely surprising that the Timberwolves won Game 1, it would be if they managed to take both games at Crypto.com Arena, where Los Angeles went 31-10 during the regular season. Perhaps the environment will be better tonight; Saturday’s loss was a wakeup call.
For Minnesota, the only player who really played poorly was Alexander-Walker. For the Lakers, the only player who really played well was Dončić, and even he had five giveaways. Edwards will probably score more than 22, but then again, James will probably score more than 19.
These teams are relatively evenly-matched, and entering the playoffs, the Timberwolves may even have better form. But they already stole one on the road, and Los Angeles really, really needs this win. James and Dončić get it done.
