The Los Angeles Lakers have come out of the gates hot winning four of their first six games despite so many key players like Luka Doncic and LeBron James missing time due to injury.
James has yet to make his season debut while Doncic opened the year with back-to-back 40-point performances before sitting out three games due to leg and finger injuries. The 26-year-old returned on Friday night and picked up where he left off, scoring 44 points to lead the Lakers to an NBA Cup victory over the Memphis Grizzlies.
In Doncic and James’ absence, Austin Reaves picked up the slack and had arguably the best week of his career. With both him and Doncic clicking, the latter believes the Lakers’ offense can improve even more, especially once James returns to the lineup.
“I think we can be way better,” Doncic said after the win over the Grizzlies. “The way Austin played when I was out, obviously today he didn’t want to shoot the ball and I don’t know why, I told him. But I mean, we got LeBron coming back. Obviously I don’t know when, but I feel like we have a lot of improvement left in the offense. But all of this is nothing if we’re not gonna get stops. Like the first half today, I think we played very bad. No energy and it starts with me. So first of all, I think we gotta be better on defend to start the half and then just play like the second half.”
Doncic is right that it starts defensively for the Lakers, and players like Marcus Smart, Jarred Vanderbilt and Jake LaRavia have been doing their parts to ensure they are solid on that end.
Offensively, it has been Doncic and Reaves leading the way so far as both are off to historic starts. There will be an understandable adjustment period whenever James returns, but the Lakers are already showing that their ceiling as a group is very high if it all clicks.
Austin Reaves happy to get Luka Doncic back in lineup
Even though Austin Reaves was putting up huge numbers while Luka Doncic was out, he was happy to get his co-star back in the lineup on Friday night.
“I’m happy he did. It was good to see him back out there playing,” Reaves said of Doncic. “Looked good, looked like he didn’t miss any time. Everybody knows how good he is. If he was trying to be me, I don’t know, probably not. He’s a little better than me. But yeah, it was good to see.”
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