Hello, everybody. Welcome in to the Lakers Nation.com podcast. I'm Trevor Lane. We've got the big series starting up on Saturday. Lakers, Wolves, it's playoff time. Let's go. Today on the show, we're going to get into what the keys are for the Lakers to get the win in the series. How can they exploit the Minnesota Temple Wolves and walk away with the win and move on to a second round? Plus, we'll take a look at the X Factor.

Joining me today on the show is Ron Gutterman. Everybody, before we dive into it, make sure you do subscribe to thelakersnation.com YouTube channel. Turn on those notifications as well and give us that five-star rating and review over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Ron, how you doing? An exciting time of year here. Lakers Wolves. Let's go. Yeah, it feels really good that we're sitting this week off, actually, and we actually have to wait a few days to get Lakers playoff basketball. It's been a lot ofin games over the last few years. This is a nice change

of pace. Yeah. I mean, I guess the downside would be rust maybe settling in, but I'm not too

worried about that. Like, this is nice to not have to battle in the play in and stress and all of that.

For some reason, I don't worry about LeBron James gathering rest.

When we look at this draw so there was a lot it was all the way down until well overtime of the final game of the season the clippers

and the warriors were battling it was not clear who the lakers were going to be playing for a little

bit there denver was a possibility.

We looked at the Warriors wound up with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

What do you think of the draw, given the options? Do you like that the Lakers got the wolves?

Do you wish they got somebody else? How do you feel about that?

You know, I think a week ago, we did a Lakers Nation roundtable about this subject, and i had put that i wanted the clippers um and that was kind of my ideal matchup and then it got to the final day and the

clippers weren't even an option anymore and i was trying to figure out between the three denver

minnesota golden state who i would want the most. And it's funny enough, I actually,

because of the whole coach situation, I wanted Denver the most because it's like, you're never

going to catch them more off guard than five days after they fired their coach. So I was really

hoping for that. But I don't think the Minnesota draw is a bad one necessarily.

But I do think this is a very good team and this is a very interesting series.

Yeah, you mentioned this is a very good team.

The Lakers are the favorite going in.

And I've said I would make them the favorite against anybody in the West, not named OKC.

But are we giving the wolves enough credit?

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