Luka Dončić missed one game with lower back tightness, then came back Monday and scored 32 points with 10 assists in a 124-114 win over the Atlanta Hawks, the club’s sixth straight victory. His line is the headline. The more useful fact is that over two nights, the Los Angeles Lakers beat two teams while missing a different lead creator each time.
The Lakers Still Go Where Dončić Takes Them
The case that this is Dončić’s team, and that his return was the story, holds up. He had been averaging 40.1 points through his first nine games, a stretch that won him Western Conference Player of the Week.
In Atlanta he added eight rebounds, five steals and two blocks to the points and assists. When Dyson Daniels and the Hawks cut it to 115-111 inside four minutes, Dončić scored at the rim and then assisted a Jake LaRavia dunk during the 6-0 run that ended the game.
The win in Detroit without him was shakier than the final score suggests. Detroit trailed 40-14 early in the second quarter and could have tied the game at 90 with 9:14 left, but Cade Cunningham missed the second of two free throws. A 26-point lead nearly disappeared, which is what a team looks like when it is missing the player who organizes everything.
The Roster Pelinka Built Is Doing Its Job
The other side has more evidence behind it. The summer rebuild was meant to give Dončić a functional roster after LeBron James left for Philadelphia and Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart, Rui Hachimura and Jaxson Hayes all moved on. This stretch was the first real test of whether that roster can carry weight, and it passed twice.
In Detroit, Austin Reaves went 14 of 27 from the field and made all 11 free throws on his way to 43, and reserves Ziaire Williams and Collin Sexton each scored 17. A night later the Lakers were missing Reaves with an illness and Quentin Grimes with a finger sprain. They won anyway, with Walker Kessler posting 21 points and 10 rebounds and Sandro Mamukelashvili scoring 23 off the bench on five three-pointers.
Dončić’s own box score backs this up. He shot 11 of 22 from the field and 3 of 11 from three with six turnovers in 39 minutes. That is a strong game, but it was not his best, and his run of 40-point games ended at four.
The Lakers won by 10 on the road because the players around him made up the difference. JJ Redick said as much afterward, telling Spectrum SportsNet that “Sandro [Mamukelashvili] had his best game as a Laker” and crediting Sexton for “getting into the paint and scoring and giving us some juice” off the bench.
One Missing Star Is Survivable. Dončić for a Stretch Is Untested.
The depth reading wins, but only within narrow limits. What these two nights show is that the Lakers can lose one of their two lead creators for a single game and still beat decent teams on the road. Atlanta came in on a four-game winning streak.
That is not the same as saying they are no longer dependent on Dončić. The Detroit game proves they can survive one night without him on the strength of a career-type game from Reaves and a 38-point first quarter. It does not prove they can hold a 10-2 pace through a week of games without him, and the minutes he sits have been the unsustainable part all season.
So Dončić’s return mattered less than the 32 points make it look. What actually moved the needle came earlier: in the 48 minutes he sat, the Lakers got a win they would probably have lost a year ago. The next test will be an absence long enough that the opponent gets to prepare for them without him.
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