MINNEAPOLIS — On Friday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Milwaukee Bucks center Brook Lopez recorded one assist.

It happened in a significant moment of the game with a little more than three minutes remaining, but all Lopez could do was laugh when asked about his role in the bucket he technically created.

“I saw the guy and I know what he does at that time,” Lopez said after a chuckle. “But, I mean, he made himself available. He makes great plays all the time, especially in the clutch. And he just, he was himself. He did what he does.”

“The guy” was Damian Lillard. And what Lillard did was hit a big shot to put the Bucks up by nine with three minutes, nine seconds remaining in the Bucks’ 112-107 victory over the Timberwolves.

It was the first of many plays Lillard made late in the win but by far the most difficult. After trying to attack 6-foot-9 wing Jalen McDaniels in isolation, Lillard kicked the ball out to Lopez, but immediately followed his pass to get the ball back. With barely any opportunity to even take a look at the rim, Lillard turned around as he caught the handoff from Lopez and fired a fadeaway 3-pointer over the top of the extended right hand of McDaniels and center Rudy Gobert.

To Lillard, the shot did not require much thought. It was the instinctual play he knew to make after 12 NBA seasons.

“I attacked the paint and when I got in there, I saw a lot of hands and I saw Brook to my left, so I threw it out to him,” Lillard said. “But I knew that they knew it was toward the end of the clock, so they would close out on him.

“And I didn’t want to put him in that position where he had to try to make a play with that little bit of time, so I just kind of followed the ball, and I knew that they would relax a little bit to where I’ll be able to at least get a shot up. And I just came off of them and shot it off the handoff, but even when I let that one go, it felt good like the rest of them did. And that was it.”

After starting the game 1-of-9 shooting in the first half, Lillard found a rhythm in the second half. Repeatedly down the stretch, the Bucks went to their All-Star point guard. Ultimately, Lillard ended the night with 21 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists, which included nine points in the fourth quarter.

All season long, from the preseason to his exclusive interview with The Athletic earlier this week, Giannis Antetokounmpo has told anyone who would listen that the Bucks are going to be Lillard’s team down the stretch. That was exactly what happened as the Bucks closed out a clutch victory over the league’s best defensive team, handing Minnesota their sixth home loss of the season.

“In my opinion, you gotta give the ball to your best players to operate and make something happen,” Antetokounmpo said on Friday. “Dame has the ball down the stretch. I have the ball down the stretch. I think we got some good shots. Dame got some good shots. I was able to get to the free throw line. I think Brook got a great 3 at the top of the key. Jae (Crowder) got a good one underneath.

“Dame was able to operate, got his midrange, got some shots. We got some offensive rebounds. At the end of the day, you gotta give the ball to the best guys that can make something happen down the stretch.“

As they tried to close out the Timberwolves, the Bucks kept it simple. They put the ball in Lillard’s hands and let the veteran point guard call the shots. He decided how to attack the Timberwolves and Lillard often picked out who he was going to attack off the dribble.

With a little more than a minute remaining in the game and a six-point lead, Lillard picked out Gobert. Rather than going to the middle of the floor and allow McDaniels and Gobert to pinch together to shut down Lillard’s drive, the veteran point guard allowed Crowder to flip his screen at the last second and free up Lillard to attack Gobert one-on-one with his right hand.

Lillard was unable to finish at the rim through Gobert or draw a foul on the play, but his aggressive attack opened up a lane for Antetokounmpo to attack the offensive glass and draw a foul on McDaniels, who had to resort to shoving Antetokounmpo to keep the two-time MVP from finishing off an easy putback.

After Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards hit a 3 on the next possession, Lillard and Antetokounmpo played catch with each other up the floor. Down by four with more than 40 seconds left, Edwards decided to be aggressive and trapped Lillard as he came across the half-court line. Lillard handled the trap and swung it to Antetokounmpo, who had the decision to attack the basket or pull it out and waste time off the clock.

Antetokounmpo decided to go with the aggressive option and took it to the rim. When he drew help from Towns and got the big man up in the air, Antetokounmpo dropped it off to Crowder, who scored his first points of the night with a simple lay-in with 35.5 seconds remaining.

“Just trust,” Rivers said of the pass from Antetokounmpo. “And that’s all we’re talking about is trust the pass. You know, Giannis and Dame are going to have the ball in their hands, let’s say, 80 percent of the game. The more they trust and get everybody else involved, the better they’re going to be.“

Edwards, who ended the night with 28 points on 10-of-27 shooting, made another triple on the Timberwolves’ next offensive possession to cut the Bucks’ lead to three with 32 seconds, which set the stage for Lillard in the clutch.

To have a better offensive unit on the floor on the previous possession, the Timberwolves had Kyle Anderson on the floor instead of McDaniels. With that switch in personnel, the Timberwolves also switched up their defensive matchups and went with a less traditional alignment.

Because the Bucks had been sticking Malik Beasley (4-of-9 from 3, 14 points all in the second half) in the corner on their offensive possessions throughout the fourth quarter, Minnesota switched Towns onto Beasley. If the Bucks ran another pick-and-roll for Lillard with Lopez or Crowder as the screener as they had been doing, the Timberwolves would have been able to pre-switch the action and brought Anderson, a switchable defender, into the action.

“They’re very good defensively, man,” Antetokounmpo said. “They pre-switch, try to keep their bigs down there, but once you see that, you know that now. Once the first guy comes out, he slips. Then the second guy has to come out. We have to get that match-up, so Dame can do his thing, so I can do my thing. I think the team did a good job to not let them pre-switch. Guys kept coming up there, and we were trying our best to get the matchup that we want.”

But the Bucks picked up on the Timberwolves’ tendency. On their final offensive possession, Lillard and Crowder quickly diagnosed what was happening with Minnesota’s defense. At the start of the clip below, look at Crowder yell to Beasley. So, instead of bringing Anderson into the action, Beasley ran up from the strong-side corner and set the screen for Lillard to get to the middle of the floor.

With the entire right side of the floor cleared out, Lillard decided to take his chance in isolation against Conley. Lillard nailed a stepback jumper to close out the win.

“We were finding the right guys,” Rivers said of his team’s ability to find the right screener (and defender) for Lillard. “We went too late, I will say that. We were starting at eight and seven (seconds left on the shot clock) with a minute left, that’s a little late. We’ll talk about that. But for me, just learning what they want too — what Dame and Giannis want — I want to find out where they want it, when they want it and, I thought overall, we picked the right guys.”

While Antetokounmpo did not make a shot in the fourth quarter, he went 8-of-10 from the free throw line and attacked relentlessly when he found the match-ups that were favorable for him or attacked the offensive glass when Lillard found the right match-up. By the end of the night, Antetokounmpo led all scorers with 33 points and added 13 rebounds and five assists.

The Bucks built on their pre-All-Star break momentum on the defensive end under Rivers by holding the Timberwolves to 13 points in the third quarter. They forced six turnovers and the Timberwolves made just six of their 23 field goal attempts, which allowed the Bucks to flip the game by outscoring the Timberwolves, 36-13. But those were things that the Bucks had already shown before the All-Star Break.

Rivers’ stated goal for the final third of the season was combining the improvement the Bucks had made on the defensive end with a dangerous offensive attack led by Lillard and Antetokounmpo.

“I think Doc has done a great job of just addressing everything,” Lillard said. “Like going around the room, this is what we want you to do, this is what we want you to do, everybody just has a clear understanding of what’s expected of him — what’s acceptable, what’s unacceptable — and what we want to do in certain moments of the game.

“And down the stretch, he told us, you and Giannis, y’all play together at the top. Dame, you keep it, play in space, call this action … and you’re going to have an opportunity to attack. And you know, a lot of the times they ran two guys at me and I was throwing the ball to Giannis. And he was able to get downhill and get fouled or make the next play. But we just played off each other, it was either him or me. We didn’t have to force it.”

A come-from-behind road win against one of the best teams in the Western Conference is undoubtedly one of the Bucks’ best efforts of the season, but as Antetokounmpo laid out postgame, Sunday’s game will reveal what Friday’s game actually means and whether or not the Bucks are actually building toward a better playoff-ready form.

“Coming out of the break, we have 26 games left,” Antetokounmpo said. “And to be able to start like this, against a team that I think is probably one of the best teams in the West — the best defense in the league, very, very talented, they play hard — and to be able to be locked in, make shots, match their energy, execute down the stretch, it’s a very good start.

“We have another one against Philly in a few days. Hopefully we can go there, play good basketball and make this win count.”

(Photo of Damian Lillard: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)