We have an interesting duel for tonight. The Lakers are in a position where they will show full focus in my opinion, as not only because this is a National TV game and they saw their three main rivals for a playoff spot (Houston, Golden State, Utah) losing yesterday. So, a loss tonight by the LA team would be catastrophic for them. Minnesota has been losing a lot of close games lately. They are prone to commit errors down the stretch and their offensive execution is simply not good. However, they can be a tough matchup for the Lakers. Minnesota has finally their backcourt fully healthy (I'm not counting with Brandon Roy): Ricky Rubio, Luke Ridnour, J.J. Barea and Alexey Shved. These players, especially Rubio, can pressure the opposing ball handler very well and so, Minnesota is forcing a lot of turnovers lately: 15.7% opposing turnover rate over their last 10 games! In four of their last ten games, the Wolves forced at least 20 turnovers to their opponents and this can be dangerous for the Lakers, who are prone in committing turnovers by being #20 in the league in Turnover rate!
This is especially problematic for the LA team, as with them committing a high number of turnovers, they quickly get exposed on their biggest defensive weakness, their transition defense! This will surely be part of Coach Adelman's plan for tonight: force turnovers and run in transition, as the Wolves have scored 15.5 fast break points per game over their last four games. The problem for Minnesota is that they can't hit an outside shot to save their lives! On the other hand, the matchup between Dwight Howard and Nikola Pekovic will be interesting. If Howard is able to shutdown Pekovic, something that won't be easy considering Pekovic's brute force, then Minnesota will need to have a decent outside shooting game in order to be competitive and that would be a miracle considering their outside shooting numbers. The Lakers have been showing good moments of basketball lately, but their in-game inconsistency is a problem and when we have them being double digits favorites, you really expect this kind of favorite to avoid having bad long stretches, something that has been usual for the Lakers this season.
