LeBron James made his season debut on Tuesday night as the Los Angeles Lakers pulled away in the second half for a 140-126 victory over the Utah Jazz. It was the first time this year that James, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves shared the court together and the results were pretty good.
Additionally, reserve guard Gabe Vincent also returned from injury on Tuesday night so the Lakers had their entire roster available. Even with all of the injuries, the Lakers have gotten off to a strong start, but now that everyone is healthy, Doncic is focused on this team continuing to build chemistry every time they are on the court and, obviously, to keep stacking up wins.
“I mean, honestly, just keep winning games,” Doncic said when asked where he feels the Lakers can improve. “Those first practices we had yesterday, we had all the guys available. It was kind of amazing. Everybody was happy. Everybody was joking around, but we were in a good place. Everybody was there, so we just got to work. We’ve got to go game by game. … We can’t let go and just keep building this chemistry in this team.”
Things got off to a bit of a rough start for the Lakers, particularly on the defensive end as they struggled to contain the hot-shooting Jazz. But they would settle in and once things clicked, the ball movement on offense was absolutely beautiful and Luka feels that is a product of the overall skill level of the Lakers’ creators.
“I would say it’s the level of skill set for sure,” Doncic added. “I think AR, LeBron and me, we’re the facilitators. I think we can find a lot of open guys. We can share the ball, and that’s what we did in the second half. I think in the first quarter, we didn’t really share the ball. The ball wasn’t moving. We’ve just got to keep going. We’ve got to look how we play, especially in the third quarter. We’ve got to keep doing that.”
Doncic and James combined for 22 of the Lakers’ 31 assists on the night and once things got rolling the Lakers could do no wrong on offense. It was a small glimpse into what the Lakers are capable of and Doncic feels they have a lot of potential going forward.
“Honestly, I haven’t thought about it,” Luka said when asked about this team’s ceiling. “Like I said before, we’ve just got to go game by game. There’s a lot of games in the NBA, so we’ve got to go game by game. I think we have a lot of potential.”
There are surely some wrinkles the Lakers need to iron out, especially when facing the elite teams in the NBA, but Tuesday night was a strong first step into what a fully healthy Lakers team can accomplish.
LeBron James doesn’t understand why people question his fit with Lakers roster
With how good the Lakers have been playing this season prior to LeBron James’ return, there were some who wondered whether him coming back could hurt the chemistry they have built to this point. And that was something LeBron himself just didn’t understand.
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