LeBron's defense is keeping Lakers afloat against Timberwolves

First, I want to give credit to the Minnesota Timberwolves. There are two sides to every series, even if this article is more focused on the Lakers side. Ant is making the right plays when he gets double-teamed and sometimes seems unstoppable when he finds a matchup he likes in single coverage. The Wolves are outscoring the Lakers by seven points every game on average. The Los Angeles Lakers had to make an adjustment to the Wolves rather than the Wolves making an adjustment to them by going small. The Wolves are winning this series more than the Lakers are losing it.

But LeBron’s effort on defense has to be acknowledged. The Lakers’ traditional starting center, Jaxson Hayes, played four minutes yesterday. He’s probably going to average minus-6 minutes per game for the rest of the series. The Lakers are severely lacking in big bodies. Somebody has to step up and deter some shots.

Here’s LeBron. He is billed at 6-foot-9, and after the aforementioned Jaxson Hayes, he was the tallest Laker to get minutes in this game. He is, by default, going to be playing some form of big while the small lineup is out there.

The lineup of LeBron James, Dorian Finney-Smith, Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves, and Luka Dončić played 27 minutes together last night, per the NBA.com stats page. Their respective heights are 6-foot-9, 6-foot-7, 6-foot-8, 6-foot-5, and 6-foot-6. They are going up against a Wolves team with a 6-foot-9 Julius Randle, a 6-foot-9 Jaden McDaniels, a 6-foot-9 Naz Reid, and a 7-foot-1 Rudy Gobert. There have only been about 10 minutes this series where there have not been at least two of those four players on the court, per pbpstats.

And yet, LeBron James does stuff

Here’s something incredible that was, oddly, found by StatMuse:

For those who may not know, a stock is either a steal or a block. So LeBron’s 17 stocks means that he has more combined steals and blocks than anyone else in the playoffs. At 40.

LeBron James played 46 minutes last night. He had 27 points on over 50 percent shooting, 12 rebounds, eight assists, and THREE blocks and THREE steals. All of LeBron’s blocks came in the fourth quarter, after he had already passed his average minutes load for the regular season. At 40.

I don’t understand how he keeps managing to do stuff like this. One of these times, it’s going to be the last time. I’m pretty sure I’m not ready for that.