Welcome back to The Times’ Lakers newsletter, where it’s finally the postseason.
The Lakers begin the playoffs Saturday against the Houston Rockets, a team that a month ago looked like one of the most vulnerable playoff targets in the West. Now the tables have turned. The Lakers, without Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic, are the team everyone wanted to see in the first round. They’re shorthanded. They’re vulnerable. But they’re not giving up.
“All season people have counted us out and all we season we have continued to show why we belong here and that we really don’t care what people say,” guard Marcus Smart said. “And that’s us. That’s who we are and I think it shows with our two guys down and the way we finished the season and the miles we had going into the playoffs.”
One player on this team has significantly more miles on his tread, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from watching him race down the court for another crowd-pleasing dunk.
The crown still fits
LeBron James chuckled at the suggestion. He smiled before the question was done.
How does he feel like he’s handled the shift back to the being the Lakers’ primary option?
“What’s wrong with you, man?” James said with a smile.
He’s not new to this. The NBA’s all-time leading scorer is taking back the reins as the Lakers’ No. 1 playmaker and steering the team straight into the postseason.
Since Doncic and Reaves were injured, James has averaged 25.5 points, 11 assists, 6.8 rebounds and 2.5 steals, finishing the season with an exclamation point against the Utah Jazz: 18 points, six assists and three steals in less than 17 minutes Sunday. A month after acknowledging and adjusting to life as the world’s most accomplished third fiddle, James was named Western Conference player of the week Monday, the 70th such honor of his career.
“He had not a good season, not a great [season],” Lakers coach JJ Redick said, “he had a remarkable season, all things considered.”
Like the wine he’s cut out of his diet, James is aging just fine. After sitting out of the first 14 games, James played in 60 of the final 68. Even though he often joked that at his age he was questionable for every game, he averaged 23.3 points in his six appearances playing with zero days of rest, shooting 58% from the field with 8.3 assists and 6.7 rebounds per game. It was more points than he averaged on one or two days’ rest.
With Doncic orchestrating most of the Lakers’ offense, James found a different way to thrive. The 41-year-old led the league with 5.7 fast-break points per game.
Of James’ 919 total made field goals, 97 were dunks. The 11.2% was tied for the largest percentage of dunks in a season in his career. It was nearly a decade ago — 2016-17 — that he dunked this often. More than 20% of his made field goals are dunks, the most of any season in his career.
“I think there’s an enjoyment level that I think he gets from making highlight plays and it feeds into it with the crowd,” Redick said. “I think that’s just part of it. The other part of it is, for him, I think he recognizes that’s one of the ways that he can really impact winning on our team. And so he’s taken [the] responsibility of, like, ‘I’m going to be the best transition player in the NBA,’ and he has been.”
James’ ruthlessness in transition set the tone for teammates, who couldn’t be seen moving slower than someone who is closer to their father’s age than theirs.
“If we see him run down, he beats us down the court, that’s not a good thing,” center Jaxson Hayes said. “So I feel like I got to get down there when I see him start going.”
The 22-time All-Star is now leading more than just a fast break for the Lakers. The team experienced an emotional hangover after the regular season-ending injuries to Reaves and Doncic. The Lakers needed more than just points from James to cure their woes.
He delivered by locking in against Golden State, being vocal during the team’s pregame meeting and showing the trademark determination that teammates can’t help but follow. It sparked a three-game winning streak to finish the regular season that James punctuated with several soaring dunks against the Jazz.
“You have no idea how much I have a respect for him,” forward Rui Hachimura said. “It’s his Year 26 or 27, or whatever the hell it is. He’s still playing the last game of the season against the team that, they’re not trying to win. We really appreciate that.”
Smart moves
Marcus Smart
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
He’s not Doncic. He’s not Reaves. But Smart’s return to the Lakers’ lineup is still significant in time for the playoffs.
The guard played the final two games of the regular season after missing what felt like the longest, three-week, nine-game stretch in basketball history. Scrambling on the floor next to Maxi Kleber to find Jarred Vanderbilt for a cutting dunk against the Suns on Friday, Smart made the expected immediate defensive difference. But with 17 assists in two appearances, Smart flashed his ability to deliver in different ways on offense.
His timely return can ease the playmaking pressure on Luke Kennard, who filled in admirably in an emergency stretch with 31 assists in four games, and help handle the load next to James.
Smart is especially aware of the energy of his teammates. He is eager to reward centers for running the floor. He shovels the ball to teammates who are going through shooting slumps to prioritize scoring over his own. It’s not a coincidence that he fired two early passes to Deandre Ayton for dunks against the Jazz and Ayton finished with his first 20-point double-double in a month.
“Even post-Boston the last couple seasons he’s graded out well as a secondary playmaker,” Redick said of Smart. “So he’s been in that position before. He knows how to get other guys involved.”
Smart knows the pressure of the playoffs. He helped the Boston Celtics reach the NBA Finals in 2022, but hasn’t played in the postseason since he was traded in 2023. He missed it. So even if he’ll begin this postseason journey without two of his main teammates, Smart will relish this chance.
“It ain’t gonna be easy,” Smart said. “We all know it, but it’s gonna be fun, and we’re gonna enjoy this ride.”
On tap
Saturday vs. Rockets, 5:30 p.m.
Here we go, friends. Game 1 of the playoffs. In March, these teams played a two-game series in Houston that felt like a playoff preview, but circumstances have changed completely since Doncic’s clutch time brilliance led the Lakers to two key wins. The Lakers went 22-8 in games within five points in the last five minutes this season, but the Rockets had a 22-23 clutch time record, which ranked 16th in the NBA, the worst clutch-time winning percentage for any Western Conference playoff team.
Status report
Jaxson Hayes: left foot soreness
Hayes missed the past four games of the regular season. He was a late scratch before the game against Oklahoma City on April 7 and has remained day to day since.
Luka Doncic: left hamstring strain
After getting injections on his injured hamstring in Spain, Doncic will be back stateside by Friday but there is no timetable for his return to the lineup.
Austin Reaves: left oblique strain
Reaves is working hard to return this season but similar to Doncic, there’s no timeline for his comeback yet.
Favorite thing I ate this week
Lotus root kofta curry (left), paratha and duck confit biryani from Rasa in Burlingame, Calif.
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
On my way to San Francisco last week, my colleague Broderick Turner texted me to “find a good restaurant.” You don’t have to tell me twice.
I went straight from the airport to Rasa in Burlingame, which specializes in Southern Indian dishes. We explored the tasting menu, which offered two appetizers, a dosa and two entrees. We started with the rasa sliders, which were spiced potato fritters with a tamarind chutney and cilantro chutney, General Tso’s cauliflower, an Indian-Chinese crossover with a familiar spicy sauce. The dosa was filled with a tamarind-spiced potato masala with basil chutney, ginger, garlic and cilantro. It was my favorite dish of the night, but I was so consumed by eating it, I forgot to take a picture. The mains (pictured) were a vegan lotus root kofta curry and duck confit biryani. I could barely touch my entree because I was so full from the first two courses, but it made great leftovers for the morning after the game.
In case you missed it
Luka Doncic rejoining Lakers after getting injury treatment in Europe
How do the Lakers match up against the Houston Rockets entering their playoff series?
‘Mr. 82.’ How Jake LaRavia became the injury-plagued Lakers’ iron man
Lakers defeat Jazz, will open playoffs at home against Houston
‘He does so many more things.’ How Luke Kennard became the Lakers’ emergency point guard
Plaschke: Broken Lakers need to shut down the season
Lakers great Michael Cooper is introduced as Cal State L.A. men’s basketball coach
Until next time…
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