Movin’ on: Rudy Gobert powers Timberwolves past Lakers and into the second round of the NBA playoffs

LOS ANGELES − The cheers from the Timberwolves permeated the walls inside the hallways of Crypto.com Arena after they finished off the Lakers 103-96 on Wednesday night, winning the NBA first-round playoff series in five games.

After Game 2 last week, the Lakers said they took some motivation for their lone win in the series after they heard the Wolves celebrating in that same hallway in Game 1.

Certainly this time they heard all the chants of “Yeah,” “Let’s go,” and Anthony Edwards reminding everyone of a popular pre-series pick, “Lakers in five.”

There is more work for the Wolves to do, but as a scratchy-voiced coach Chris Finch said after, some celebration was in order. The Wolves were going to howl late into the Los Angeles night if they felt like it. They earned it after a season in which a playoff series victory seemed like wishful thinking during the first few months.

“We got a long way to go. We’ll regroup, but we are certainly going to celebrate this,” Finch said. “Because this team took a lot of [expletive] through the season, and that was set against the backdrop of a really good run last year.

“But every team is different, and every team has to come together, and every team has to go through pain, and every team has to figure it out, and this team figured it out.”

That went double for the weird way in which the Wolves won Game 5. They couldn’t hit a shot from the outside despite having open looks all night. They went 7-for-47 (14.9%) from three-point range, made just one in the second half, and still eliminated Luka Doncic (28 points), LeBron James (22 points) and the Lakers.

A second round series against either Houston or Golden State awaits after the Wolves won playoff series in consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history. The Rockets and Warriors play Friday with the Warriors holding a 3-2 lead. Should Golden State win that game, the next round starts Monday at Target Center.

It was fitting Wednesday that two players who have taken a lot of flack in their careers came to the rescue for a Wolves team that received plenty of criticism, and who nobody has taken seriously on a national stage until now.

The Wolves don’t move on without Julius Randle having the series of his life after Knicks fans excoriated him for how he performed in big moments there. Randle had 23 points in Game 5, 11 of those in the fourth quarter, as he kept an ice-cold Wolves ahead down the stretch. He finished the series averaging 22.6 points on 48% shooting.

“Julius is an All-NBA guy. You guys can say whatever you want about him,” said his former teammate in New York, Wolves guard Donte DiVincenzo. “Everyone in this locker room knows who he is and what he does for us.”

Added Finch: “Another guy who’s had a lot of unfair criticism in his career, and he was outstanding on both ends of the floor. We don’t win this series without him.”

But the Wolves don’t win Game 5 specifically without Rudy Gobert, whose broad shoulders and spasm-prone back carried the Wolves across the finish line with his finest hour (well, 2 hours and 40 minutes to be exact) in Minnesota: 27 points, 24 rebounds, nine of those on the offensive end.

Gobert was 12-for-15 from the field after he was a non-factor offensively for the other four games.

“Rudy was a dragon,” Edwards said. “... He was the dragon from ‘Game of Thrones’ tonight.”

Gobert could feel a night like this building for him in Game 4, because “ I felt like it was getting harder and harder for them to keep me off the boards.”

Not only did he have the nine offensive boards, but he kept other possessions alive by tapping the ball out to teammates. That contributed the Wolves’ 18 offensive rebounds as a team and 20 second-chance points. Even as they couldn’t throw it in the ocean from three-point range, they punished the undersized Lakers on the glass and at the rim (56-40 points in the paint advantage).

“When you have this guy on your team, you understand what a professional and a winner is,” Finch said. “He’s just such a competitor.

“He doesn’t listen to the outside noise, we don’t listen to the outside noise. No one is happier for Rudy than his teammates right now, particularly Anthony, who let everybody out there on the floor know that it was Rudy’s night and nobody was around to stop him.”

The Wolves found Gobert in the flow of their offense, sometimes with nobody around him at the rim, as the Lakers loosened their defense in the paint. He made them pay. When he checked out of the game with 38.6 seconds remaining, his teammates loudly greeted him at the bench, and chants of “Ruuuu” filled that part of the arena, as fans sprinted for the exits to beat traffic.

“I love these guys,” Gobert said of that moment. “We’ve been through a lot. Whether it’s the younger guys or the veterans, we have a special group.”

The Wolves could have made Wednesday easier on themselves by hitting some of the many open looks they generated, but nobody could find a rhythm.

Edwards had just 15 points on 5-for-19, and he was 0-for-11 from three-point range. But the Wolves’ defense stood tall, as it had most of the series. They held the Lakers to 16 points in the final minutes, and they benefited after Dorian Finney-Smith, one of the main five players Lakers coach JJ Redick trusted, fouled out with 6 minutes, 7 seconds to play.

The Wolves could shapeshift their defense while ignoring whoever was in the game for Finney-Smith, whether it was Gabe Vincent (zero points) or Maxi Kleber (two points). It was 88-87 Lakers when Finney-Smith exited, the Wolves won the rest of the game 16-8.

When they needed a bucket in the fourth quarter, Randle was the guy they found. He bully-balled the Lakers into the offseason.

“When you play next to [Edwards], it makes the game a lot easier,” Randle said. “Because they throw two or three people at him, so you just got to be willing to move and be in the right spaces on the floor. … I always tell him, go be great. But if you need me, I’m right there for us.”

The Wolves led 97-94 with 1:42 to play when they finally got a three to fall. In another fitting turn for this game, it came from Mike Conley, the veteran who has steadied the Wolves during the stormy season.

“I told Donte, we were trying to figure out who was going to be in the corner,” Conley said. “I said I got it. I was fiending to get one. I’m glad I got it.”

Edwards drove the lane and attracted a crowd. He kicked to Conley in the right corner, and he buried the only three the Wolves hit in the second half (1-for-17) to put them up 100-94.

“If there’s a guy who’s got nerves of steel, makes big shots, and he’s made a ton of them for us, it’s going to be Mike,” Finch said. “ … When he let it go, I was like, ‘Oh, this one finally looks like it’s gonna go in the basket.’ And it did.”

Before he and Edwards began their postgame remarks, Naz Reid (three points) said he felt like the kid in school who barely did any work but received an “A” on the group project anyway. Edwards said, “Ant-man, Superman. Batman. Lakers in five,” again reminding everyone what the consensus pick was coming into the series.

“You know what makes it feel even better, is that they said Lakers in five,” Edwards said. “And the Wolves won in five. So I think that makes it feel 10 times better.”