Lakers blown out by Timberwolves after abysmal third quarter

LOS ANGELES — A three-finger pat to the caput has been a awesome of joyousness and swagger successful Staples Center this season. When Karl-Anthony Towns weaponized the motion backmost against the Lakers, it felt similar an ambush.

After the Minnesota Timberwolves large antheral drained a 3-pointer precocious successful the 3rd quarter, Towns cocked 3 fingers lazily to his brow, a send-up of Carmelo Anthony’s 3-point celebration. And the Lakers, who were successful the midst of a second-half drubbing, had perfectly nary retort. And by the end, fans were turning connected the location team, too.

Minnesota handed the Lakers a 107-83 defeat, seizing power portion outscoring the Lakers 40-12 successful the 3rd 4th (29-4 to commencement the 2nd half). Tired legs yet ran retired of gas, and the Lakers changeable a level 35% from the floor, falling to 7-6 this season.

Anthony Davis had the champion nighttime of immoderate Laker connected an disfigured stat sheet, finishing with 22 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots successful 31 minutes. Russell Westbrook had an unhappy 33rd birthday, padding his stats astatine the decorativeness with 20 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. They were the lone 2 Lakers to people successful treble figures.

The crippled spiraled rapidly successful the 3rd 4th arsenic the Lakers, coming disconnected back-to-back overtime wins, could not marque a tract extremity for much than 7 minutes – from 11:17 to 3:44. During that stretch, the Timberwolves flipped a five-point shortage into a 20-point lead, and erstwhile they caught their bushed they could not beryllium stopped.

Towns (29 points) and erstwhile Laker D’Angelo Russell (22) led the spree. Towns scored 18 of his points successful the 3rd quarter, nailing 3 of his 3-pointers toward the extremity of the play to crush immoderate remaining resoluteness the Lakers mightiness person had near to marshal. The Lakers changeable 4 for 21 wide successful the third.

With a turnover aboriginal successful the 4th fourth – 1 of 20 the Lakers coughed up successful the crippled – Staples Center fans mislaid their hope, too. Some began to boo, voicing the unrest that has settled successful passim an uneven, injury-plagued commencement to the season. The Lakers fell to 3-4 without LeBron James, and adjacent the wins person been hard, each successful overtime.

Adding to the frustration: Old nemesis Pat Beverley making his instrumentality to Staples Center and remaining the aforesaid symptom connected defense. Especially astatine the commencement of the third-quarter rally, Beverley made his beingness felt with 3 baskets, 3 rebounds and 2 assists successful the archetypal 4 minutes of the period. Beverley – who has nary emotion mislaid with Westbrook among others – finished with 11 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists.

Among the Lakers’ ain relation players, determination were nary standouts. The flamethrower 3-point shooting they had against the Miami Heat connected Wednesday (a season-high 18 3-pointers) was obscurity to beryllium found, with the squad finishing a dismal 9 for 41 from down the arc (1 for 13 during the 3rd quarter).

The Lakers had attempted to instrumentality vantage of their shooters with a displacement to a smaller lineup, starting Wayne Ellington successful spot of halfway DeAndre Jordan, who did not play. At first, it looked similar it mightiness work, erstwhile the Lakers took a 49-44 halftime pb and were holding the Wolves nether 40 percent shooting. Anthony Edwards, who scored 48 points 2 nights before, was held to conscionable nine.

After an iffy start, the Lakers appeared to beryllium good successful bid by precocious successful the archetypal quarter. Davis helped substance a 17-2 run, which was helped on by a brace of buckets from Malik Monk, inactive smoking from his 27-point crippled connected Wednesday.

The momentum deed a partition erstwhile Minnesota’s Josh Okogie deed Anthony’s arm, drafting a flagrant 1 foul against the 37-year-old moments earlier the first-quarter buzzer. From that moment, starting with a brace of Okogie escaped throws, the Timberwolves went connected a 13-2 tally of their own.

It turned retired to beryllium tiny potatoes successful the strategy of things. The Lakers present person lone a back-to-back remaining during the five-game homestand, against San Antonio (Sunday afternoon) and Chicago (Monday night), earlier embarking connected a five-game travel that starts successful Milwaukee against the defending champions.

More to travel connected this story.