Luka, Reaves and the 48 hours that changed the Lakers season

At the start of the playoffs, without two of their stars, the Lakers face Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets, starting as underdogs at home.

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THE LAKERS’ REBOUND At the end of the season he not only improved the team’s position in the standings, but also transformed its hierarchy and reinforced its confidence.

For more than a month—33 days, to be exact—from late February to early April, the Lakers They were one of the most in-form teams in basketball, and seemed to be building momentum for a long playoff run.

The injuries that had plagued the squad since the start of training camp had been resolved. The roles of the three stars of the Lakers, Luke Doncic, lebron James and austin Reavesthey had bonded. And the results had been overwhelming.

From February 28 to April 1, the Lakers They achieved a record of 16-2. Their offense, which ranked No. 11 after their first 58 games of the season, rose to No. 4. Their defense, which ranked No. 24, suddenly became a solid ninth.

Although the Lakers They had a record of 10 more wins than losses before the streak began, there were legitimate criticisms about the sustainability of their performance up to that point, and their improvement in play allayed even those concerns.

Suddenly, the team that couldn’t shoot went from 19th to 8th in three-point percentage. The team that did not have the athletes necessary to come back in transition went from 13th in opponent fast break points to 8th. And the team that always lost against good teams counted among its conquests the New York Knicks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets (twice).

Following the 127-113 victory over Cleveland on March 31, in which the Lakers They outscored the Cavs 78-49 in the second and third quarters to avenge a 30-point loss suffered earlier in the season, asked Doncic about the change of direction of the season.

“The streak we’re on,” he said Doncic“It means a lot. We have to keep playing.”

Then, 48 hours later, everything changed.

A TORNADO WARNING and a storm that sent lightning into the sky and dropped more than an inch of rain on Oklahoma City foreshadowed the game. Lakers against the Thunder on April 2.

It was the first time that Los Angeles had faced the defending champion since November 12, when the Thunder won convincingly 121-92.

In that match, the Lakers they did not have Jameswho was out with a sciatica injury that kept him off the court for the first month of the season, and the Thunder were without Jalen Williams, who was recovering from wrist surgery he underwent during the preseason.

Five months later, this game was supposed to be different, with both teams in top form and the Thunder as hot as they are. Los Angeleshaving won 15 of their last 16 games.

It was supposed to be an opportunity for Lakers validate his promotion and to highlight the individual duel between Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, with possible MVP votes up for grabs.

Instead, what was supposed to be a spectacle between two of the NBA’s best teams quickly turned into something else: a massacre.

The Thunder took a 18-4 lead in the opening minutes and led 82-51 at halftime. Reaves He hurt his left side jumping for a long rebound in the first quarter, but remained in the game.

The second half was even worse for the Lakersgiven that Doncic He left the game midway through the third quarter after grabbing his left hamstring and collapsing on the court in pain.

After the game, the Lakers They were already mentally preparing to do without Doncic for a time, sources told AM850. His left hamstring had kept him out of action for four games before the All-Star break, and it is an injury with a high risk of relapse.

An MRI was scheduled for the next day in Dallas. This revealed a grade 2 strain.

It was a blow, no doubt, but not a knockout.

The Lakers They were still in third place in the West with five games left in the regular season, and two of their rivals, the Dallas Mavericks and the Utah Jazz, were focused on their chances in the draft lottery, not necessarily on winning.

TO Reaves His left side continued to bother him, so the team scheduled him for an MRI. Initially, they thought he would only miss one or two games and would be back before the regular season ended, team sources told AM850.

Meanwhile, there was disappointment within the team that Marcus Smart was unable to return from a right ankle injury to help with ball-handling responsibilities, team sources told AM850.

When the Lakers gathered to practice at South Methodist University (SMU) the day before the game against the Mavericks, the team recognized that the path to a long postseason had narrowed. Even so, they maintained the conviction that it was possible to overcome it.

Redick said it would increase attacking opportunities for center Deandre Ayton and forward Rui Hachimura, something they loved after longing for shots on goal all season.

Redick met with Luke Kennard, acquired for his shooting ability in a trade with the Atlanta Hawks at the trade deadline, to discuss the need for him to play point guard during that period.

“We went over some things and I was in different positions,” Kennard told AM850. “They were preparing me for what was going to happen.”

For its part, James He was unfazed by what this would mean for him personally, according to close sources, because even if he had voluntarily taken the third-choice position behind Doncic and Reaves during the winning streak of Los Angeleshe never felt like he had to do it because of a decline in his performance. It was just what the team needed at that moment.

“Our job, the job of the rest of these guys and my coaching staff, is to go for third place and we’re going to try to win a playoff series,” Redick said after practice April 4. “And we’ll see what happens with Luke“.

A couple of hours later, once training was finished, the team received the results of the second MRI of Reavessince the first was inconclusive: he had suffered a grade 2 oblique strain and would be out for four to six weeks, sources informed AM850.

Suddenly, that narrow path seemed to close completely.

“(After the news about Reaves), it’s almost like JJ thought, ‘Do I need to talk to the team about this again now?'” a team source told AM850.

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THE NEXT DAY, News of the two previous cases became evident in the American Airlines court.

Los Angeles They were 22 points behind on the scoreboard against the Mavericks and fell 134-128, despite the fact that Dallas had lost eight of its last nine games.

James He shined with 30 points, making 12 of 22 shots, in addition to dishing out 15 assists and capturing nine rebounds. Hachimura took 13 shot attempts, his most in months, and made nine of them. Kennard, with a low shooting percentage (5 of 17), achieved his first triple-double with 15 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists.

But the defensive grit that the team had talked about at SMU, the attitude that had improved so much throughout the season, was latent, according to several team sources. Lakers to AM850. And Dallas, despite having little incentive to do so, dominated the game, and the relationship between both franchises remains tense since the transfer of Doncic.

Two days later, the Lakers They played against the Thunder again, this time in Los Angeles. And again, it was an ugly match.

Redick sat Hachimura a couple of minutes after the opening tip and then called a timeout to pull Jarred Vanderbilt just 16 seconds into the second quarter, prompting a heated exchange between the two, with Reaves and the assistant coach of the LakersNate McMillan, intervening to prevent the situation from getting worse.

Los Angeles was trailing by seven points at the time of the dispute with Vanderbilt; The Thunder extended that lead to more than 40 in the second half. The defeat left the Lakers with a record of 0-2 since the injuries, and the Nuggets moved up to third place in the West, putting Los Angeles in danger of losing home-field advantage in the first round if it continued to fall, with a series of back-to-back games looming against Golden State and Phoenix.

Before the game against the Warriors, the Lakers They held a team meeting at their San Francisco hotel.

Redick began by admitting that he had overlooked the emotional toll of the game in Oklahoma City.

“It was important to address the situation and analyze it,” he said. “And recognize the level of confidence that our group had during those six weeks. Now we have to find a way to get this group – players, coaches, all of us – to believe in themselves very intensely again.”

A team source added: “I think it was a bigger shock than we acknowledged.”

Also highlighted was the attitude of James during the team’s preparation for the game against the Warriors.

“Just leading the group in practice, taking it seriously and trying to get a win in Golden State, it reestablished a tone of, ‘Guys, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but let’s commit to each other,'” a source present at the meeting told AM850. “‘Let’s commit to the process.'”

So they did it.

THE LAKERS WON to the Warriors 119-103 on April 9. They then routed the Suns 101-73 the next night. And they closed the regular season with a 131-107 victory over Utah last Sunday.

Their final 3-0 victory gave them a 53-29 record, three more wins than last season.

James was named Western Conference Player of the Week after averaging 24.0 points, 9.7 assists and 6.0 rebounds after Doncic and Reaves they would get injured.

And, surprisingly, from April 3 to 12, the Lakers they improved in several aspects regarding his performance during his winning streak. His defense became even stronger and his three-point percentage increased from 37.6% to 41.2%.

The Lakersat least for now, have stabilized.

They will begin their first-round series as the fourth seed in the Western Conference, hosting the Houston Rocketsfifth seeds, in the first game on Saturday (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

While they are preparing for this, sources close to AM850 indicated that they do not plan to have Doncic nor with Reaves at no point in the first round. However, they also don’t completely rule out the possibility of one or both becoming available as the series progresses.

“We’ve been hiking all season, we’ve gotten lost in the woods, and no one believes they’re going to rescue us,” Redick said. “But we find a way, we go back to the meadow, we run into civilization and everything is going to be okay. That’s what our group is like. I think we’ve all adopted that philosophy, and now we just have to demonstrate it with this group.”