Who guards Luka Doncic on the Timberwolves? The best options, including Jaden McDaniels

USA Today

17-04-2025

Who guards Luka Doncic on the Timberwolves? The best options, including Jaden McDaniels
Obviously, we all know Luka did a fantastic job at using his hostage dribble against Jaden McDaniels in the WCF last season, but I thought I would share the clips since I am researching for my piece dropping tmrw.
Jaden's defensive fit is going to be paramount. pic.twitter.com/zDvRChWP4L — Jonah (@Huncho_Jman) April 16, 2025
Los Angeles (3) will face Minnesota (6) in the opening round of the Western Conference postseason with Game 1 beginning April 19 at 8:30 p.m. ET.
One of the most fascinating elements to watch during the NBA postseason is how each team attempts to defend the superstars on the opposing teams.
For this series, we used all of the NBA Advanced Stats Player Tracking data available on NBA.com, dating back to 2017-18. This allowed us to get a sense of how often each player was defended by another player in the league and how well they have done during those opportunities.
This project looks at past data to predict the primary defenders each team will use. It does not account for switches, rotations, doubles, and other more advanced schemes that defenses can utilize.
Who guards Luka Doncic?
This is a particularly interesting question because while the Timberwolves faced off against the Mavericks in the postseason last year, Doncic was still on the Mavericks.
Now in Los Angeles, however, Minnesota will need to account for the fact that they also have to guard LeBron James. Last season, they only needed their length to match up against Doncic because the other star on the Mavericks was a smaller guard in Kyrie Irving.
Last playoffs, per NBA.com, McDaniels was the primary option that Minnesota used on Doncic. He "should be the assumption" as the primary guy again this year, per Dane Moore. The secondary defenders were Kyle Anderson (no longer with the team) and Anthony Edwards.
Only five players (Luguentz Dort, Mikal Bridges, Andrew Wiggins, Jrue Holiday, and Paul George) have had more experience guarding Doncic than McDaniels. He has done a relatively serviceable job, too.
Doncic has averaged 40.1 points per 100 possessions since the start of his NBA career while recording an effective field goal percentage of 54.2 percent. Per our research, though, McDaniels has held him to 30.7 points per 100 with an effective field goal percentage of 48.1 percent.
McDaniels is no stranger to guarding the opposing star, either. Among those with at least 1,500 minutes played this season, per BBall-Index, he ranked No. 10 overall in matchup difficulty.
For what it is worth, though: Edwards will probably get plenty of possessions against Doncic as well.
Doncic has had more success against Edwards than he has had against McDaniels, but the former No. 1 overall pick has enough athleticism to at least hold on for occasional bursts and switches.
Minnesota will also use another defender off their bench to slow Doncic like they did with Anderson last season. That player is likely rookie wing Jaylen Clark.