“All the games are going to be very, very important for a lot of teams in this fight. We have one more, let’s try to perform well,” Nuno said.
“We are back in the City Ground in front of our fans, it’s a big help.
“We have never stopped believing, no matter what happens. Throughout the competition, we have had good moments and bad moments and we have been able to react and again it is up to us to react again.
“All the games are the biggest games of our career, this is how we approach it.
“We are only thinking about Brentford now, that is the only thing we have to consider now in our minds, is to compete against them.
“It’s in our hands, that’s a big advantage.”
Full-back Neco Williams and captain Ryan Yates are both available to face the Bees after they were suspended at Wembley, while Nuno says he is continuing to monitor defender Ola Aina’s fitness.
“There are a lot of players to assess, it was a very demanding game, a lot of players finished with cramp, so we will see,” the Portuguese said.
On Aina, he added: “We still have one more day, assessing all the players, trying to make the decisions.
“All the players who have been out are important to us. We have spoken many times about that.
“We have been missing Ola, especially because of the stability of the back four we had and the routines.
“I don’t know how many times we had the same players – that’s crucial, especially in defence. We will assess him and see how fast he can return to the team.”
Buckle’s boxing and BSL life have seamlessly moulded together, but she came to boxing late just three years ago.
The Covid pandemic proved a pivotal moment, tying together different aspects of Grace’s life.
To combat the isolation of lockdown, Buckle began online – and then in-person – fitness sessions designed to piece together community spirit for groups such as the Deaf Ethnic Women’s Association (DEWA) in north London.
Instruction, counting down and motivation all came with new challenges. Along with the greater use of visual aids, the key to successful sessions, explains Grace, was the ability to demonstrate and emphasise exercises.
A rare positive legacy of the pandemic was the passing of the British Sign Language Act 2022, which made BSL one of the recognised languages of Great Britain.
When she first won the NACs in 2023, Buckle was a novice boxing out of Miquel’s gym in Brixton.
Her triumph at the NACs, when she beat Emily Asquith, a European champion at youth level – despite only having one amateur bout and a handful of white-collar fights under her belt – provided the foundation for a rapid rise.
Buckle subsequently beat the Kazak Lazzat Kungeibayeva, previously a gold medallist at the world championships, at her first overseas tournament for England.
She would go on to win the 2023 Haringey Box Cup, another NAC gold medal in 2024 and the Golden Girl tournament in Sweden in 2025.
“You do get natural born fighters,” says Quinton Shillingford, Buckle’s current coach.
“It’s not just a question of technique and motivation, it’s about whether you keep coming forward when you are hurt and have taken a shot.
“Grace’s mum and dad are both deaf and I know she takes inspiration from them.
“She’s always saying ‘my mum is so strong’. She knows the difficulties they have had to navigate.”
Back in the ring, Buckle has not had things all her own way.
A loss to Celine Lee-Lo of New Zealand at Haringey last year was the catalyst for a move to Shillingford’s Heart of Portsmouth gym and her triumph at this years NACs.
“I used to think it was a cliché, but there is a lot of wisdom in the idea, ‘that it’s not a loss, it’s a learning’,” Buckle says.
MINNEAPOLIS — Somehow, the Lakers concealed the shortcoming in plain sight for months, enough to where the situation looked manageable.
That was then.
Now, in a postseason series against an athletic team with size, their lack of a big man has become a major problem. Now, as the Lakers find themselves with a two-games-to-one deficit in their first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the absence of a reliable center could be why their season comes to a premature end.
Timberwolves forward Julius Randle shoots over Lakers forward Rui Hachimura, guard Gabe Vincent and guard Luka Doncic in Game 3 of their series Friday at the Target Center.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Considering how Jaden McDaniels and Anthony Edwards practically skipped to their basket Saturday night at Target Center, the Lakers might as well have replaced their free-throw lane with a red carpet.
The Timberwolves knew the Lakers couldn’t stop them, and the numbers reflected their lack of respect. They attempted 45 shots in the paint, compared with 28 for the Lakers. They scored 56 points in the paint, compared with 26 for the Lakers.
McDaniels scored 30 points, including 24 in the paint. Edwards finished with 29 points and a team-high eight assists.
“The fact is we don’t have rim protection,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “So if you give up blow-bys, we’re gonna give up something.”
The Lakers technically have a center in 7-footer Jaxson Hayes, but Redick clearly doesn’t want to play him, evidenced by how Hayes has logged nine or fewer minutes in each of the three games of this series. The nine minutes Hayes played Friday were particularly destructive, as he registered a plus/minus of minus-13.
The Lakers knew this could be a problem, which is why they had a deal in place to acquire center Mark Williams for the Charlotte Hornets before the trade deadline. But Williams underwent a physical examination, the Lakers were concerned with what they saw, and the trade was rescinded.
Perhaps general manager Rob Pelinka should have gambled on the 7-foot Williams, who was healthy for the remainder of the regular season. Or perhaps Pelinka should have lined up contingencies in case the trade for Williams didn’t work out. Or perhaps he should have gathered more accurate information on the injury-prone Williams beforehand, which could have saved the Lakers time and afforded them the luxury of redirecting their efforts elsewhere. Or perhaps there was nothing he could have done, given the shortage of available big men.
Lakers forward Jarred Vanderbilt and Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels fight for a loose ball during Game 3 of their playoff series Friday at the Target Center.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
None of that matters now. What’s done is done, and the season autopsy can wait until the summer. The Lakers have a series to win.
Figuring out how to do that is the job of Redick, who said he believed his team could overcome its size deficit.
“We’ve done it all year,” he said. “When we’ve been at our best, we’ve been able to be physical on the ball and not allow blow-bys and also have sort of a cover mentality, multiple effort and it was there at times tonight.”
“Just gotta do a better job of standing in front of the ball,” Finney-Smith said. “I feel like we were just giving up too many blow-bys, and it really ain’t had nothing to do with our size. It was just on-base defense and rotations outside of when we gotta scramble. I feel like we didn’t have the sense of urgency the whole game, and they did.”
Redick pointed to some of the other mistakes made by his team.
“I think we had two [plays] where we collected a rebound, we get backtapped, we give up a point,” he said. “Those things really, really accumulate, especially when you’re turning the ball over.”
Provided Doncic recovers from whatever made him vomit over and over in the hours leading up to the Game 3, the Lakers have two of the best players in the league in him and James. They have a dangerous No. 3 option in Austin Reaves. They have solid defenders in Finney-Smith and Jarred Vanderbilt. But they don’t have a big man, and at this moment, what they don’t have feels as important as what they do.
