The torrid stretch of play Luka Doncic has been on during March will cool down, at least for one night, when the Lakers host the Wizards on Monday.
With the NBA not rescinding Doncic’s technical foul from Friday’s win over the Nets, which was his 16th tech of the season, the Lakers star guard will serve a league-mandated one-game suspension when the Lakers match up against the Wizards at Crypto.com Arena.
Doncic averaged 36.5 points (49.3% shooting, 39% on 3-pointers), 8.1 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 2.3 steals during the Lakers’ 14–2 stretch going back to Feb. 28 before the league announced on Saturday that he’d be suspended for Monday’s game.
He’s the reigning Western Conference player of the week, receiving the honor back-to-back weeks.
“He’s disappointed,” coach JJ Redick said after Sunday’s practice. “He wants to be there for his teammates, and again, I’ve talked about this all year, he plays. He’s not a guy that takes games off. He can be banged up and he’s gonna play. He was like that when I was his teammate in Dallas.”
With the way the Lakers have leaned on Doncic, their game plan against the Wizards will have to look different.
More time for Austin Reaves to be the primary ball handler with Doncic out.
Possibly more playing time for Bronny James, Jarred Vanderbilt and Maxi Kleber, with starting guard Marcus Smart and Adou Thiero both being “day-to-day”, in addition to Doncic’s absence.
Smart has missed the last three games because of a right ankle contusion, while Thiero has been sidelined for the last couple of days because of left knee soreness.
“For [Monday], we’ve gotten some great contributions from guys that haven’t necessarily been in, like the nine-man rotation when we’ve been fully healthy,” Redick said. “Bronny’s had some good moments. Vando’s had some good moments, Maxi’s had some good moments. But we’re gonna need everybody.”
Jersey swap
When Reaves conducted his post-practice media availability, he had centers Deandre Ayton and Jaxson Hayes by his side.
But Reaves was wearing Ayton’s practice jersey. And Ayton was wearing Reaves’.
Hayes was wearing second-year wing Dalton Knecht’s jersey during a practice nobody wore their own number.
“We all just traded,” Hayes explained. “Dalton, I saw he was still wearing his jersey, so I gave him Vando’s. I had Vando’s jersey on, we traded. Everyone had on a different jersey.”
Golf time
Reaves joked that Redick needed to quickly finish his post-practice availability so Reaves could go so he wouldn’t be late for his tee time.
Golf has quickly become one of the frequently-discussed topics among Lakers, a significant amount of the team playing.
“It’s funny, because when I first got in the NBA, there were a lot of guys that golfed and then nobody golfed for a long time,” Redick said. “And then post-bubble [in 2020], guys started getting back into it, and it became more common. For our team, we have 3-5 guys, at least three, that this time last year, have never played golf before: Bronny, Luka, LeBron, kind of Dalton, I think Jaxson started to work on his game.
“It’s a good team-bonding thing. For our team in L.A., I talked about this in a press conference recently, it’s really hard in LA to bond. You live in Manhattan Beach, you live in Calabasas, you live in west side, whatever. You’re hours, sometimes, away from your teammates. So finding tee times, being with each other for four hours where you can shoot the proverbial S-H-I-whatever and not have to be in a high pressure moment or on a team bus and kind of be away from the facility, I think it’s great.
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