The Los Angeles Lakers play host to the Minnesota Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.

The Timberwolves (44-20) have been holding on to the top seed in the west with a fingernail and recently gave up that lead to the Oklahoma City Thunder. They are now just 0.5 games back of Oklahoma City and are just 0,5 games ahead of the Denver Nuggets. It'll be between those three teams to battle for homecourt throughout the Western Conference playoffs, but Minnesota has to be the underdog. We say that because this team hasn't been in the position in nearly two decades, and they just lost Karl-Anthony Towns for the remainder of the regular season. The big man tore his meniscus earlier in the week, and it'll be tough for this club to maintain that top spot without an All-Star player like that. The T'Wolves have been proving doubters wrong all year, though, and they'll look to do that once again.

The Lakers (35-30) are one of the hottest teams in the NBA, but their win on Friday was one of the most exciting of the year. Despite playing without LeBron James, Los Angeles pulled out a 123-122 win over the Milwaukee Bucks. D'Angelo Russell had the game of his career, finishing with 44 points, six rebounds and nine assists. More importantly, LA closed that game on an 11-4 run over the final two minutes, with D-Lo knocking down a game-winning floater in the final seconds. What's really frustrating is that Anthony Davis suffered a shoulder injury as well. Having LeBron and AD both nicked up could be a disastrous sign for the future, but it's hard to overlook LA's recent form and the play of Russell. They come into this matchup winning 11 of their last 16 games.

This is the third matchup between these teams, with Minnesota winning the first two. They have won seven of their last nine games over the Lakers in total, dating back three years.