LOS ANGELES — Not long after the game of his life, after he laid siege to LeBron James, Luka Dončić and the national media’s favorite team to open the playoffs, the last thing Jaden McDaniels wanted to do was talk about it.
He sat at a table in the visiting press conference room with his hoodie pulled tight over his head, the collar sneaking up over his mouth and sometimes muffling his words. He carried the affect of a man who just had to put his dog down.
No one ever would have known by looking at him that he had just scored 25 points on 11-of-13 shooting, grabbed nine rebounds and led a Minnesota Timberwolves defense that looked eerily similar to the dominant unit of last season in a 117-95 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of their first-round series.
“I honestly don’t know if he even gets happy playing basketball,” Mike Conley said with a chuckle.
The expressionless face, the monotone voice — it is all much more Kawhi Leonard than it is Anthony Edwards, but maybe that’s what makes the Wolves feel dangerous on a night like this. While so many people at the start of this series were transfixed by James and Dončić and seduced by the gold in the Lakers jerseys, McDaniels couldn’t have cared less. He knew the Lakers were going to dare him to score while they loaded up on Edwards and Julius Randle. He knew that Dončić eviscerated the Wolves in the playoffs last season. He knew most expected the Timberwolves to lose.
Instead of kowtowing to James or cowering as Dončić went off in the first quarter, McDaniels kept coming at them all night long. The Timberwolves, a team known to get emotional and get taken out of their game, followed suit. They led by as many as 27 points but didn’t blink when the Lakers trimmed the deficit to 12 points early in the fourth quarter.
JADEN. MCDANIELS. FADE. pic.twitter.com/Qm7YVD7qJK
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 20, 2025
The Wolves played like a team that knew it was bigger, stronger and more talented from top to bottom, if not right at the top. McDaniels hit all three of his 3s, grabbed four offensive rebounds and was a team-best plus-27 in 33 minutes.
“Jaden McDaniels is my favorite player of all time,” said Edwards, who had 22 points, nine assists and eight rebounds.
The Lakers wanted to make McDaniels beat them, and that’s just what he did. He will get into trouble offensively when he sits in the corner and settles for 3 after 3. But on Saturday night, McDaniels had the perfect mix of jumpers with strong drives to the basket against a toothless Lakers interior defense.
now you see him, now you don’t. pic.twitter.com/pvsVfPjdq2
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 20, 2025
“He was outstanding at both ends of the floor, and we need that type of effort from him,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “We’ve seen that through the middle part of the season, when he’s really kind of taken a massive step, and we saw it last year in the playoffs too. Couldn’t have been at a better time for us.”
It was an emotionless dismantling that seemed almost disrespectful. McDaniels is bowing to no one, and that is exactly the approach the Wolves need to take in this series.
There are times when they need Edwards’ fire. Think back to the opening round series with the Phoenix Suns last year. That was an unproven Minnesota team facing Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, and the image of Edwards jawing at KD in the third quarter of Game 1 served as an announcement, of sorts, that the Timberwolves were hapless no longer.
But these Wolves don’t want to get caught up in a mano a mano between James and Edwards. They don’t want to play like they have a score to settle with Dončić for last year’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals. And they certainly shouldn’t be celebrating after winning just one game in this series. They need to be cold, calculating and relentless.
After the game, Naz Reid was asked what he would say to all of those people who picked the Lakers in the series.
“I wouldn’t say nothing, just watch,” said Reid, who scored 23 points and went 6 of 9 from 3. “I don’t really talk. I like to play, so it is what it is.”
Reid and McDaniels sat side by side in the news conference, a bit of poetry for the close friends who came to Minnesota with low expectations. Reid was an undrafted rookie free agent six years ago who has blossomed into the reigning Sixth Man of the Year and become a folk hero in town for his rise from the G League Iowa Wolves to a core piece in Minnesota.
McDaniels was taken with the 28th pick in the draft five years ago, and at one time was pigeon-holed as a 3-and-D role player who couldn’t shoot. He stays in Minneapolis for much of the summer to work with Reid, and that diligence has helped him become a true two-way player who started a five-year, $136 million contract this season.
Together, they represent the superpower of the Wolves. Edwards is the clear leader and best player. Julius Randle has been a rock-solid second option in his first season in Minnesota. Rudy Gobert was excellent in the second half of the season and is the center point of their defense.
But McDaniels and Reid can swing games, and series, for the Timberwolves when they play like they did in Game 1. Lakers coach JJ Redick has done a great job of scheming up opponents this season, often identifying the weak link on offense to ignore, which allows LA to pack the paint and disrupt passing lanes. McDaniels is that guy in the Wolves’ starting five. But the 6-foot-10 forward punished the Lakers with his long arms and ability to elevate right over them for clean looks.
The Lakers have been at their best this season when they go small, taking center Jaxson Hayes off the court for the 6-8 Rui Hachimura. But on Saturday, that decision came with dire consequences. The Wolves manhandled that look, with McDaniels getting to the paint at will and flexing when he got there.
“I just noticed at certain times when they had no rim protector in the game, when Jaxson Hayes is not on the court, I’m the tallest person out there,” McDaniels said. “I don’t think no one can really rim protect me because Jaxson Hayes wasn’t on the court.”
Reid, Randle and Donte DiVincenzo went to the rim over and over again, either creating easy buckets there or collapsing the defense and kicking out to wide-open 3-point shooters. Minnesota set a playoff franchise record with 21 made 3s in 42 attempts, outscored the Lakers 44-32 in the paint and 25-6 in transition.
On the other end, Dončić came out firing with 16 points in the first quarter as the Lakers jumped out to a 28-21 lead. He scored 37 in the game, another huge night against a Timberwolves team he loves to torment. But he only had one assist and five turnovers, which limited his damage. The Wolves’ approach felt like a carbon copy of how they play Nikola Jokić, content to let the star score in bunches as long as they limit his wingmen from going off.
James had 19 points on 8-of-18 shooting and five turnovers. Austin Reaves had 16 points on 5-of-13 shooting and was hunted on defense. No other Laker scored in double digits. The Wolves’ bench outscored the Lakers’ 43-13.
“Maybe it took us one playoff game to now get a feel for it and know what type of intensity, the type of physicality is going to be brought to the game,” James said. “But that’s just the way they play. So we should be more than prepared for that on Tuesday night (for Game 2).”
McDaniels would be hard-pressed to repeat Saturday night’s shooting display, and the Lakers are hardly going to fold up the tents after dropping just one game. James and Reaves will be better in Game 2 on Tuesday, but the Wolves believe they have a lot of room for improvement as well.
Sure, they shot the lights out. But Edwards was a pedestrian 8 of 22 from the field and only shot two free throws. He missed at least three layups on contested drives.
“I can’t believe how many I missed,” he told Randle as he walked out of the arena.
Randle played well defensively and was 4 of 6 from 3, but he had seven turnovers in 35 minutes. Gobert only got two shots because the Wolves missed several chances to get it to him with smaller defenders on his back.
And the Lakers were not whistled for a foul until just over four minutes left in the first half, which will certainly add fuel to the fire that the league has a purple-and-gold bent to it. Finch and Randle received technical fouls for arguing with referee Marc Davis’s crew, but it wasn’t enough to shake them.
When the series schedule was released, there was much lamenting in Wolves land because of the three different two-day breaks in the first five games. The teams get two days off before Game 2 on Tuesday, another two between Games 2 and 3 and then,if necessar), two more days off between Games 4 and 5. The conspiracy theorist would say that the NBA is giving the 40-year-old James as much time as humanly possible to recover so he can be fresh and give the Lakers the best chance to advance to the second round.
What Minnesota fans may not have considered is how advantageous the extra time will be for the Wolves. They are at their best when they have time to prepare, look over game film and work on strategy and execution in practice. Edwards and Finch have said how important the week off after was last year to their four-game sweep of the Suns, a team that had dominated them in the regular season. The Wolves, and Edwards in particular, are always sharper when they have time to meet, practice and go over game plans.
“Just stay on an even keel. That’s the most important thing,” Finch said. “We left a lot of meat on the bone out there, a lot of things we know we can do better.”
Truth be told, the Wolves probably needed Game 1 more than the Lakers. For as unimpressed as they are with LA’s pedigree and star power, they still had so much to prove against Dončić. He will be undaunted by the loss, and he and James will no doubt come up with plenty of adjustments as they try to even the series.
The Timberwolves played harder and tougher than the Lakers all night. Edwards left the game with cramps in the third quarter but returned to play eight minutes in the fourth. Reid took an elbow from Jarred Vanderbilt to his left eye but jumped back into the fight after a brief rest and buried the Lakers in the fourth.
“I was hurt for a second, came back in, hit a 3,” Reid said. “It’s not easy to take me out the game.”
It had to have been cathartic for the Wolves to beat Dončić as soundly as they did, to send the Laker fans to the exits with more than four minutes to play. But this is a team that plays its worst basketball when the wind is at its back. There was no celebrating after this game, no trash talk or chest puffing. They were, as a group, following McDaniels’ lead.
“We all live for these moments, but we’re a team that understands that it’s just one game, and we’ve got to try to get another one before we go home,” Conley said. “We’re completely locked in right now, so I’m just proud that we’re able to stay solid.”
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(Photo of Jaden McDaniels and LeBron James: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
