How the Minnesota Timberwolves mimicked L.A. Lakers stars Luka Doncic and LeBron James in practice

LOS ANGELES – On Friday, the Timberwolves practiced at UCLA, their fourth practice this week in preparation for facing the Lakers in Game 1 of their playoff series.

As the Wolves let media in for the final few minutes of practice, the reporters could see some members of the team, sporting red jerseys. That’s the scout team, and for four days the scout team has been responsible for learning the Lakers inside and out to run their plays and mimic their personnel as well as possible.

“It’s critical,” coach Chris Finch said. “We meet with those guys to start the week and we prepare them like we would be preparing any team. … We tell them go hard, test [the rest of the team]. It’s hard to replicate the talent, but it’s the tendencies and getting used to that, dialing in around that.”

So who got the jobs of trying to copy Luka Doncic and LeBron James? Doncic fell to Joe Ingles and James to Terrence Shannon Jr. Ingles said the first part of the assignment was to embrace it, to put ego aside when you’re not a part of the first or second units and realize this is the best way to help the team win.

He spent time watching film of the Lakers and doing sessions with his player development coach to get some of Doncic’s tendencies down even though he is lefthanded and Doncic is righthanded. The goal is to test the players who will deal with Doncic, among them Jaden McDaniels, Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert.

“Just for when we do get into practice, just to somewhat be close to what he would do,” Ingles said. “The last part is competing, so my job is for Jaden, or whoever is guarding him, Ant at times, to go hard at practice, bring Rudy up, get an iso and try to get by him and do the things he’s going to do.

“He’s going to go at Rudy, go at mismatches, go at whoever is in front of him.”

The scout team watched film separately at times from the rest of the team to drill down on what the Lakers would be doing. Finch said Ingles did a good job of making the Wolves pay when they made mistakes in their coverages in practice, just the way Doncic likely will do in a game.

“Joe’s IQ is so high, so any time we were off on a coverage or where there might’ve been a little bit of slippage, he was able to exploit it,” Finch said. “Body type is similar. Talentwise it’s obviously hard to get to Luka’s level, but it’s more a cerebral part of the game that you’re playing with Luka as much as his physical nature and talent.”

The Wolves tapped Shannon to imitate James because of his size, physicality and playing style. Shannon isn’t afraid to go at defenders when he attacks the rim. He isn’t afraid of contact. This is what the Wolves wanted when figuring out who would play the role of James in practice this week.

“The force that he plays with, and we want him to be ultra-aggressive,” Finch said. “T.J. can do all those things. T.J. is actually an underrated passer.”

The extra week of practice before the playoffs is different from the rhythm of the season. There’s more time to get to know opponents and specifically what they will do in a given situation. This helped the Wolves beat the Suns last season in the first round after going 0-3 against them in the regular season. Typically in the regular season, Finch said, the Wolves have time only to tweak their base defense. This week allowed them to delve deeper.

“Maybe emphasizing things within your base defense that you’re going to be seeing more of than a normal night,” Finch said. “You have layers of personnel, but here it’s way more exaggerated. You’re going to try and flat out take some things away, maybe change some parts of your base defense or principles. You have the opportunity the entire week to retrain yourself in some ways.”

That included the scout team players retraining themselves for a week.

“At this point in my career, I want to win,” Ingles said. “We got a great group. We got a hell of a chance to do something special. And if this is my role to help the team, then I’m all in.”