{"id":321049,"date":"2025-12-01T18:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/321049\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T18:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:21:11","slug":"no-lebron-no-problem-luka-doncic-austin-reaves-lead-red-hot-lakers-past-pelicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/321049\/","title":{"rendered":"No LeBron, no problem: Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves lead red-hot Lakers past Pelicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

As long as Luka Doncic<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a> are playing, the Lakers<\/a> always stand a good chance of winning \u2014 even if LeBron James<\/a> is out.<\/p>\n

That proved to be the case yet again Sunday night at Crypto.com Arena as the Lakers rolled over the injury-depleted New Orleans Pelicans 133-121<\/a> with James out managing a left foot injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Lakers (15-4) won their seventh straight game behind Doncic\u2019s 34 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists and Reaves\u2019 33 points and eight assists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know what made it special, but I think we’re just good basketball players,” said Doncic about his success playing alongside Reaves.<\/p>\n

Read more: Former Lakers star Anthony Davis makes long-awaited return to L.A. after trade<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lakers have a game Monday against the visiting Phoenix Suns, but it’s unclear if James will play.<\/p>\n

James missed the first 14 games of this season with sciatica and has played in just four games. Left foot injury management also kept him out of some games last season.<\/p>\n

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“It’s something we’ve had to manage,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick<\/a> said. \u201cGiven the back-to-back and the fact that he’s basically just coming off his training camp \u2014 this has been his training camp over the last 10 days or so \u2014 [we’re] just being cautious.”<\/p>\n

With James in his 23rd NBA campaign at age 40, it remains to be seen how many back-to-back games he will play this season. The Lakers have 10 sets left after Monday.<\/p>\n

“No, we’re going to build him up, hopefully, to be able to play in back-to-backs,\u201d Redick said. \u201cThat’s the goal. But you are correct. Every back-to-back is a case-by-case. That’s just the reality of the NBA right now. But we want him to be able to play in back-to-backs. So does he. So, we’re going to work toward that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 15-4 Lakers have 63 regular-season games left, meaning that James can miss only two more if he wants to reach the NBA minimum of 65 games that players need to appear in to earn postseason awards. James has made a league-record 21 straight All-NBA teams.<\/p>\n

Redick said individual postseason awards have \u201cnever come up as something that\u2019s important” in his discussions with James.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI want all my guys to get whatever award they deserve,\u201d Redick said. \u201cOf course, I want, you know, Austin, Luka, LeBron, like whoever, I want them to get awards. That’s great for them, but … the list of things that you have to worry about and think about as a player and coach, it’s so far down the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers scored 77 points in the first half against New Orleans, tying the most points they have scored in any half this season, and they scored 46 points in the first quarter, the most they have scored in any frame this season.<\/p>\n

It figured to be an easy night for the Lakers with the Pelicans (3-18) missing starters and key role players, including Zion Williamson, who was managing a left hamstring injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to play with the right intent,\u201d Redick said. \u201cThought we did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Even so, Lakers center Deandre Ayton<\/a> was a force with 22 points and 12 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Read more: Austin Reaves helps Lakers and Luka Doncic notch win over Mavericks<\/a><\/p>\n

Late in the fourth quarter, however, Ayton limped to the bench after bumping his right knee. But Ayton, who missed one game with a right knee contusion earlier this season, said he\u2019ll be available to play against the Suns, his former team.<\/p>\n

\u201c…Kind of tweaked my little collision I had the other day in Utah<\/a>,\u201d Ayton said. \u201cJJ said he was going to sub me out regardless. So, it was good timing. It cooled down after the game so I\u2019m good now.”<\/p>\n

Lakers guard Marcus Smart<\/a> missed his second straight game with back spasms.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter on all things Lakers.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As long as Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves are playing, the Lakers always stand a good chance of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,30097,63,726,12839,63857,2873,7896,11473,9034,3879,7210,7185,85,7226],"class_list":["post-321049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-austin-reaves","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-jj-redick","tag-lakers","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-marcus-smart","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-sports","tag-zion-williamson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}