Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson was not a fan of what he saw from his former team on Saturday night.
In their NBA Playoffs opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles struggled to keep up, losing the game 117-95 and dropping to 0-1 early.
Minnesota was red-hot from behind the arc, converting on 50% of its three-point attempts. Power forward Jaden McDaniels led the way, scoring 25 points on 11-of-13 shooting.
Luka Doncic scored a game-high 37 points, but that was all L.A. got, as LeBron James scored just 19 points in the loss.
During and after the game, Johnson, a former player and executive with the Lakers, had some hard criticism of first-year head coach JJ Redick.
“Coach JJ Redick did a great job all season but he didn’t do a good job for Game 1,” Johnson said. “The Lakers stood around on offense, played too much one-on-one basketball, and he didn’t make any necessary adjustments.”
In a post before that, he called out the Lakers for having one of their worst performances this season.
But just before those two, Johnson made his thoughts on the series very clear, admitting that the sixth-seeded Wolves “match up very well against the Lakers,” who hold the three-seed.
Los Angeles better be careful if it wishes to stay with this young Minnesota team, led by Anthony Edwards, who advanced all the way to the Western Conference Finals a season ago.
James played in 70 regular season games, and fans are starting to wonder if that long season is perhaps catching up to him. Los Angeles will need the 40-year-old to turn back the clock to keep up with the youngsters on the Timberwolves.
The second game of the best-of-seven series will take place on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET and will air on TNT. A loss there and Los Angeles will find themselves in a massive 0-2 hole heading into the road games in Minnesota.
