Jake LaRavia played 32 minutes in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 124-114 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night and finished with 4 points. No Laker who spent more than 13 minutes on the floor scored fewer, and only Luka Dončić played longer.
The Lakers won anyway — a sixth straight, moving them to 10-2 and keeping them on top of the Western Conference. That is the frame for everything below: a comfortable night for the team, and a thin one from its starting power forward.
Four Points, Three Turnovers and Five Fouls in 32 Minutes
LaRavia went 2-of-6 from the field and 0-of-1 from three, with three rebounds, three assists and three turnovers. His five personal fouls were the most of any Laker and left him one away from fouling out.
He also finished at even. Every other Laker who got on the floor ended the night either above or below the line; LaRavia was the only one whose minutes moved the scoreboard neither way.
The Starting Five Played to a Draw and the Bench Won It
Los Angeles’ starters finished in a narrow band between minus-three and plus-five. Every reserve who played finished positive, and Sandro Mamukelashvili finished plus-20.
Mamukelashvili logged exactly as many minutes as LaRavia — 32 — and scored 23 points on 7-of-13 shooting with five three-pointers and eight rebounds. Two Lakers at adjacent positions played identical minutes and produced 23 points and 4.
The Lineup Was Two Guards Short and Needed the Spacing
Hours before tip, the Lakers downgraded Austin Reaves to out with an illness, and Quentin Grimes was already out with a right finger sprain. That left LaRavia starting in a group carrying more of the floor-spacing load than it normally has to.
One three-point attempt in 32 minutes is the number that sits most oddly against that. Across his first eight appearances this season, LaRavia averaged 6.4 points in 23.4 minutes and shot 59.4 percent from the field on 19-of-32 — Monday gave him nearly nine minutes more than that average and returned less than his per-game scoring.
Nobody Put the Question to Him
Nothing in the postgame coverage put the question to LaRavia or to JJ Redick. In a ten-point road win with the bench doing the heavy lifting, a quiet night from a starter is the kind of thing that goes unremarked.
That leaves the box score talking on its own, which is worth saying plainly: 32 minutes returning almost nothing is a fact, and the reason for it is not in these numbers.
What Has to Change Next Game Is Narrower Than It Looks
LaRavia’s season has been built on efficient, low-volume shooting from the forward spot next to Dončić, and Side Eye Sports has argued that the Lakers are right to keep him starting over Ziaire Williams. On the night his lineup needed that spacing most, he took one three — and the shortfall is in the attempts as much as in the misses.
He drew a C- for a similar shift against Detroit on Sunday, 29 minutes for five points and one rebound, in our grades from the Lakers’ win over the Detroit Pistons. Two games is not a pattern and nothing here says otherwise.
It is a reason to expect his shot count to climb, not a reason to touch the lineup. The Lakers are 10-2, and a starter going quiet in a ten-point win is a problem you fix next game, not one you solve by moving somebody.
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