It’s time for the Los Angeles Lakers to hear “1-2-3 Cancun!” again. Freshly packed and sent home by the Minnesota Timberwolves, the 2024-25 NBA season came to a disappointing end for the 17x champs. Now, call it a game of fate or simply the league’s brutality, JJ Redick and his boys are swallowing the bitter pills of elimination. A 1-4 for them, but a triumph 4-1 for Anthony Edwards.

The Timberwolves silenced the Lakers with a 103-96 win on Wednesday, sealing the series in just five games. Despite shooting an icy 7-for-47 from beyond the arc, Minnesota found other ways to dominate. While the threes refused to fall, grit and hustle took center stage.

The Lakers? Left searching for answers as their season slipped away. In the end, shot charts didn’t matter. The Wolves wanted it more, and it showed.

Speaking to the reporters after winning the series, the Wolves’ HC, Chris Finch, addressed the shooting woes. Coach Chris Finch faced questions from reporters about his satisfaction with shot selection despite the team’s poor three-point shooting. It’s about whether the strategy was right, even if the execution fell short.

“Yeah, I love the shots. My God, I thought we got a ton of wide-open looks. I think our guys were just tight, a little bit, to be honest. They were trying to will the ball in at one point,” Finch admitted. Meanwhile, the Wolves also overcame a bad shooting night from Anthony Edwards. “I thought Ant didn’t see it go in, so he was really kind of hellbent on making one go in. But he did a good job of mixing in just enough drives for us,” the 55-year-old coach noted. Anthony Edwards played selfishly; he wanted to score more for his team with the semifinals on the line.

The 23-year-old guard had 15 points on 5-for-19 shooting, and Julius Randle had 23, including some timely buckets in the fourth quarter. But it was Rudy Gobert who shone the brightest in LA on Wednesday. The 4x DPOY finished with 27 points and 24 rebounds. He had eight dunks, and he was responsible for a large chunk of the Wolves’ 20 second-chance points.

Finch also added, “I thought for the most part, every other three-pointer that we generated was pretty much wide open. If we make those early in the game, then maybe we have a better lead at halftime.” According to Anthony Edwards & Co.’s head coach, had they created good opportunities early on when they were leading by 10 points in the first half, things could’ve been different; better momentum.

Wolves HC clears the air on supposed locker room troubles

Meanwhile, the reporters asked Coach Finch how the team handled his message about accepting different closing lineups. Rudy Gobert didn’t close these last few games, so going with the Naz Reid and Julius Randle group seemed like a leap of faith.

“I think it’s huge. It shows the maturity and the growth of our team. I think if you looked at some early games, there were certainly some guys who were not happy that they weren’t closing, not happy that they weren’t starting, not happy this, not happy that. They, to their credit, put it all aside,” Finch commented. The team’s willingness to accept his decision showed ‘maturity’ and ‘growth’, which of course reflected not just on the scoreline but also on their overall Playoff results vs. the LA Lakers.

He added, “The team started playing better. Everybody realized that, hey, it was going to work that way. I wasn’t always going to get it right, and I’ve owned that from day one. But once we started to get the results, guys could see it and feel it. If it wasn’t your night, move on, and the next night it probably was. It’s a little sign of maturity, which we’ll take.”

Well, the Lakers packed bags, while the Wolves packed punches. Minnesota didn’t need a three-point clinic; they needed grit, guts, and Gobert. Anthony Edwards may have been a little too eager, but his drive fueled the fire. With Finch pulling the right strings and egos left at the door, the squad played like a team on a mission. Now, Cancun calls LA—while the Wolves march on, louder than ever.