| Whenever you hear talk of the Los Angeles Lakers these days, the word “fun” is never too far away. There’s glee and mirth all over the place. A good time is guaranteed. Smiles on faces. The only problem for LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and fans of the purple and gold? It’s all being had at their expense. Currently, the Lakers are fun to play against. They’re fun to beat up on. They’re fun to mess with and they’re fun to make fun of. Rival teams are rapidly discovering that this season provides a rare opportunity to do all of the above without a shred of immediate repercussion. On Wednesday night, the Minnesota Timberwolves performed a basketball version of a diss track. They pushed the Lakers around on the court, cruising to a 25-point lead before closing out a resounding 124-104 victory. They eviscerated them with deliberate disrespect, more on that shortly. And they loved every minute of it. This is the Lakers’ new world. With 13 games remaining, they are the NBA’s favorite punching bag. They have gone 3-12 in their last 15 outings and have failed to win two straight since early January. James looks frustrated and often dispirited. Westbrook is putting together an absolute stinker of a campaign that makes you wonder where he could possibly land next year. One way or another, the offseason will be here soon enough. In the meantime, they’re getting embarrassed. It’s the Lakers, so no one is going to feel sorry for them. Quite the opposite. When Westbrook hoisted a 3-pointer from the corner that hit nothing but air in the fourth quarter, Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns stood at the spot where he caught the ball and looked theatrically skywards, before shouting to the home crowd asking if someone had opened a window – get it? Nearby, Patrick Beverley, Westbrook’s long-time adversary, pretended to drop the ball onto his own head and then moved out of the way of it – to comically indicate a falling brick. Earlier, after a possession in which he had grabbed a cheeky offensive rebound and then picked off an errant Westbrook pass, Beverley was seen yelling: “Trash! He’s trash!” In many ways, it was the tale of two teams. The Lakers looked gloomy and morose throughout, like a squad that is rapidly skidding its way out of the play-in tournament, let alone a more secure postseason spot. They’re being bullied and they’re doing little to stand up for themselves. The Timberwolves are hungrily seeking to move up from the seventh spot in the West, have won nine of 10, and are doing it with swagger. “We know exactly who we are,” Beverley told reporters. “We are not backing down from anybody. Humbly though. Not arrogant in that sense. We are not running away from any kind of smoke or ducking any kind of action.” No kidding. Well aware of Westbrook’s shooting woes, the Minnesota crowd and their players were mockingly yelling at him to shoot every time he touched the ball. Westbrook finished with 15 points on 5 of 12 shooting. “When you’re up, everything is going great,” Lakers guard Wayne Ellington admitted. “When you’re down, they’ll kick you. Right now, we’ve been getting kicked.” More kicking is probably coming. Given that this is a proud franchise with 17 championships hanging in the rafters, arguably the best player ever in James and a top 75 guy in Westbrook on the court, you would expect a punchier response. How dare the Timberwolves humiliate the Lakers in this way? Surely a vocal admonishment would follow, and perhaps more. “No comment,” said head coach Frank Vogel. Westbrook mustered a half-hearted attempt at a response, which didn’t do much more than highlight his dismal current narrative, that he’s a superstar who has to trade on past glories, because the present is nothing to boast about. “The trash-talking doesn’t bother me none,” Westbrook said. “Nobody over there has done anything in this league that would make me pick my eyes up, like, ‘Oh, they’re talking mess. Let me respond.’ No. It’s fine. They’re good. They won the game. Happy for them. Move onto the next one.” Make no mistake about this now. The Lakers are in freefall and give every impression of a group that is checked out on the season. From the perspective of everyone who is soon to play them, there’s blood in the water. “I keep saying every night it can’t get any worse,” Skip Bayless said on “Undisputed.” “And then it got worse because the Timberwolves, featuring Pat Bev, are clowning you.” Occasionally something will happen to obscure the reality that this has become a tale of woe, like when James exploded for 56 points on the Golden State Warriors and 50 on the Washington Wizards. Don’t be fooled. The Lakers are the butt of the NBA’s jokes, a masterpiece in dysfunction. There’s no sudden turnaround brewing, no insta-cure, no magic waiting to unleash. They look like they can’t wait for the summer to start. They’ll soon get their wish and will be heading to the offseason, the wrong kind of laughter ringing in their ears. |
