MINNEAPOLIS — They had already airballed a free throw, turned the ball over five times and missed all nine of their three-point attempts when a bad night in Minnesota got even worse.
Anthony Davis, the Lakers’ star big man, fell to the court and immediately grabbed his right ankle, his foot unnaturally turning to the exterior as he stumbled to the ground. On a day in which they added two more players to the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols, including rookie Austin Reaves, the stripped-down Lakers couldn’t afford to lose another player.
Davis ran back onto the court, only to once again limp off it, this time clutching at his left knee after an awkward collision with the Timberwolves’ Jaden McDaniels. He fell to the ground in the tunnel leading to the Lakers’ locker room.
The attrition seemed to have caught up with the Lakers, their modest three-game winning streak collapsing after a clunker of a 110-92 loss marred by another injury.
Davis, playing in just his second game after missing two because of a sore knee, didn’t return to the game Friday night — one less reliable player for a team suddenly with a serious shortage of them.
He will undergo more testing Saturday following what the team called a left knee contusion.
The basketball problems were all fairly obvious. The Lakers didn’t take care of the basketball. They consistently failed to block out and got killed on the boards. They missed a whole bunch of shots.
But they were also seriously wounded, with six players in the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols and another, Trevor Ariza, still unable to play as he worked his way back from an ankle injury that has cost him the entirety of the season so far.
The Lakers still don’t have Talen Horton-Tucker and Dwight Howard. They had hoped Malik Monk would be able to return, but while he was cleared to travel with the team, he wasn’t cleared to play. Avery Bradley went into the protocols Thursday with Russell Westbrook, and Friday, Reaves and the injured Kendrick Nunn went into the protocols.
“You just got to roll with the punches,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said before the game.
Westbrook, after a pair of negative tests, rejoined the team and was able to play.
Vogel declined to say whether his players were asymptomatic or how many players have received booster shots. The team is fully vaccinated.
“All I can say is some of our players have gotten the booster shot and some have not,” Vogel said.
The virus also kept radio broadcaster Mychal Thompson from working Friday’s game and has affected multiple members of the team’s traveling party.
All of it meant Vogel had to be creative, playing undrafted rookie Chaundee Brown Jr., who is on a two-way contract, and the freshly signed Isaiah Thomas considerable minutes.
“It’s craziness,” he said. “I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s not like anything I’ve seen before or dealt with before as a coach, coming into games and guys just in and out of the lineups like this. It’s challenging, but we don’t try to focus on anything that we can’t control. So you find out who is in the game, take those guys, and go out and win the game.”
It sounded easy enough, especially considering the Timberwolves had their own COVID-19 problems with second-year guard Anthony Edwards entering the NBA’s protocols Friday, two days after he made 10 three-pointers in Minnesota’s win in Denver.
But the Lakers were quickly pushed around by Minnesota, starting with Karl-Anthony Towns, who attacked Davis and the Lakers from the game’s first possessions. At one point in the first half, the Timberwolves’ Patrick Beverley knocked Rajon Rondo out of his way for an easy basket, yelling “Baby” while signaling that Rondo was too small.
Beverley received a technical foul, but it didn’t stop him or his teammates from out-toughing the Lakers all night. Coupled with really sloppy offensive play — LeBron James, at one point, threw a pass directly off his defender’s head leading to a layup the other direction.
The Lakers close out their road trip Sunday night in Chicago — with no real idea of who will even be on the court.
