No LeBron? No problem. The Lakers had Luka Doncic—and Austin Reaves to steady the ship. But it was the Slovenian magician who rewrote the script. Denver has never been an easy rival, yet Wednesday at Crypto.com Arena felt different. In his No. 77 jersey, Doncic strolled in and made history. With his first 3-pointer of the game, he became the fastest player in the Lakers’ history to score 50+ 3-pointers made, per StatMamba. He made it look smooth. He made it look effortless.

Luka exploded in the first quarter with 21 points, marking his 200th career game with at least 30. With his brilliance, the Lakers, missing LeBron James and Rui Hachimura, found a way. Austin Reaves stepped up with 22 points, fueling a hard-fought victory. While LeBron remains absent, there is no reason to think that Luka’s elite passing has ceased to exist. In fact, he seemed to have found a new wide receiver in Jaxson Hayes! Even the commentators noted that Hayes was living the time of his life with Luka. Indeed. Look at this.

Before Luka arrived in LA, Hayes’ was averaging 4.6 PPG. With Luka that saw a steady increase in February (7.5 PPG) and March (11.2 PPG). If that is not proof enough, look at their 107-96 win over the Suns. Hayes logged his season-high 19 points with half of those being scored by alley-oops from Luka. No wonder after the game, Hayes tagged the 5x All-Star “the best point guard in the league.” But even Luka himself had pointed out earlier that chemistry takes time to develop. That is where there looks to be a slight concern in the Lakers camp.

Building proper chemistry has felt like a real struggle for the team. Well, you cannot truly blame the players who aren’t getting any practice time, but playing six games in eight days! Referring to that, after the game, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt asked Luka: “What is that process like, particularly with him (LeBron James) hurt now, as you guys just try to figure out exactly what it’s going to look like?” 

The 26-year-old responded: “We basically have no practice. I mean, we don’t have time to practice. We play six games in eight days, so it’s impossible to practice. Obviously, it’s tough because in practice, you get chemistry, you get everything. It’s on us to figure that out.” Meanwhile, the good news is, the 26-year-old Slovenian is fitting in with his new team and teammates.

Pelt asked Luka if he felt he had reached the point where he could say, “Alright, this is my squad, this is where I’m at, I can be me.” To this, Doncic replied: “Like I always say, every day gets better. That’s three wins in a row now so we’ve got to just keep it going.” That’s the kind of motivation that winning gives to a team. Many questioned whether he would settle in with the Lakers after his trade from Dallas, especially whether he and James would fit together. But they had to eat their words once the connection started rolling. Take Paul Pierce for instance.

Pierce was one of the first analysts to express doubt. But within less than a month he had to take his words back. He had to say that Doncic and James would figure it out because they both are High IQ players. “This is like midseason. You have a training camp, you don’t even know none of this plays yet. We just rolled the ball, and say, go play. But when you’re that caliber IQ player, like you and LeBron, we’re probably looking at two of these smartest guys in the NBA,” Paul said on SPEAK last month.

Maybe it is because of this IQ that even when having defenders all over him, Luka finds teammates for wide-open buckets. The Lakers are already sniffing playoffs. But the race is getting tougher in the west, with Minnesota and Golden State showing their characters. But Luka’s theory is simple here.

Top Comment by Lakerlegend

OMGGGG!!! The way these people twist what the players say is ridiculous. He wasn’t saying that they didn’t have...more

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Luka Doncic’s take on the Lakers playoff path

Going all the up to the 3rd spot in the West after winning 120-108 vs. the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday, the Lakers are obviously looking forward to the playoffs. However, they might not have forgotten how they slipped to the 5th position after that disastrous 0-4 road trip. It takes just one or two games to turn the picture around. “With so many teams closely bunched together, we all know you’re going to be part of the playoffs. Is that anything you guys pay attention to and focus on at all, where you sit in the West?” the Pelt asked Luka.

As candid as ever, he replied: “I don’t think so. We go game by game. It’s important we go game by game because if you think in the future, you may forget about the next game. It’s important to go game by game. We know it’s tight, very tight, so we got to try to win every game.” Indeed, the Lakes did show that never-say-die character, especially during their March 14 matchup against the Nuggets.

A shorthanded Lakers squad had almost defeated the Nuggets that had players like Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray playing. “Very shorthanded and went and played a really good basketball team with, probably, the best player in the world and went toe-to-toe and had an opportunity to win it and just didn’t execute the last 50 seconds. I guess that’s what you take positive,” Austin Reaves (37 points, eight rebounds, 13 assists, and four steals) had said after the game. So, Luka and the squad stay focused and refuse to let the chaos consume them. And if there is anything else that they can do right now, that is praying for getting the squad back to health as soon as possible.