A battle to watch: Lakers guard Luka Doncic vs. Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert

LOS ANGELES – Several times in Games 1 and 2 of the Lakers-Timberwolves NBA playoff series, Lakers guard Luka Doncic would get the switch he wanted on Wolves center Rudy Gobert.

Each time, the crowd at Crypto.com Arena would begin to get loud, hoping every one of these possessions would end the way it did for Doncic in the Western Conference finals last season when he hit a three over Gobert in Game 1.

But while Doncic has scored a few times on Gobert, Gobert has also had a few wins himself when faced with these situations. Austin Reaves has also tried to pick on Gobert at various times with similar results: some buckets, some misses that Gobert affected.

“Some of the times they score, some of the times I do a pretty good job. … But there’s always things that I’ve got to do better, we’ve got to do better,” Gobert said. “But overall, as a defender, that’s what I enjoy. I enjoy guarding the best players in the world, and I always embrace that challenge.”

The teams split the first two games, with Game 3 on Friday night at Target Center.

A major story line coming into the series was if the Lakers play Gobert off the floor by hunting him in isolation. And even though the Wolves lost Game 2, they feel good about the state of their defense so far in this season after holding the Lakers to 95 and 94 points in the opening games. That includes how Gobert has been playing in isolation, although he said there were things he could do differently against Doncic, who had 31 points on Tuesday night in Game 2.

“I’m opening my feet too much when he just has a straight-line drive,” Gobert said. “He doesn’t even have to make a move to drive to the basket. I have to clean that … up. We did that, and we tried to make it not easy for him to go downhill and try to make him work.”

The NBA’s defensive stats say Doncic is just 1-for-8 over the two games when Gobert is guarding him; however, these numbers seem to be off in watching the two games. There were multiple times Doncic scored when Gobert was guarding him over the course of both games. Reaves was 2-for-4 against Gobert in Game 2, according to those same statistics.

Coach Chris Finch pulled last season’s NBA Defensive Player of the Year for the final minutes as the Wolves were trying to make a comeback from down 11, but that was because Finch wanted to maximize offense with a Naz Reid-Julius Randle frontcourt. Finch was fine with how Gobert played in Games 1 and 2, and cited the fact that he was a minus-2 while on the floor in a game the Wolves lost by nine.

“His impact on the floor remains pretty strong,” Finch said.

Where the Wolves likely need to get Gobert more involved, or he can get himself more involved, is on the offensive end of the floor. Gobert punished smaller teams later in the regular season and flirted with 20-point, 20-rebound nights multiple times. The Lakers play small, but Gobert has just eight points and seven shot attempts so far.

“It felt like they weren’t as helping on my rolls and when I was in the dunker spot,” Gobert said. “But sometimes you’ve got to watch film and see exactly what’s happening.”