Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Luka Dončić (31 Points) and LeBron James (28/13) Help the Lakers Win a "Rock Fight" With the Clips

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Rui Hachimura was in street clothes with a knee injury, Austin Reaves left the game with a sore calf after only nine minutes. So the Lakers needed their stars to play big on Friday night against the Clippers, and both stepped up. Luka Dončić finished with 31 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter, while LeBron James added 28 points with 13 rebounds. Behind them, the rest of the team made meaningful contributions and it was enough for another win, 106-102. The Lakers are now 37-21, a game back of Denver for the 2nd seed in the Western Conference. Luka's not fully clicking yet, the team is still figuring out a lot offensively... and they keep winning. But what's clear is the defensive identity they've built seems to work with basically anyone on the floor. Friday, they got meaningful minutes from Dalton Knecht, Jordan Goodwin and Trey Jemison III. Dorian Finney-Smith stepped into the starting lineup. That's a decent amount of change to absorb for one game on the second night of a back-to-back facing a quality team that had its second star (Kawhi Leonard) in uniform. There are reasons optimism is starting to grow, and they appear legit. Meanwhile, the injuries to Hachimura (evaluated again in a week) and Reaves (they're still checking, but didn't seem terribly concerned) aren't currently seen as that bad. And even if they're a little shorthanded in the near term, the Lakers have built up some cushion in the West.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky Your favorite podcast now has a newsletter! In One-stop for ultimate team and league coverage delivered right to your in box. Sign up for free now, at lockedondaily.com.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!RobinhoodWith Robinhood Gold, you can now enjoy the VIP treatment. The new Gold Standard is here with Robinhood Gold. To receive 3% boost on annual IRA contributions,  sign up at robinhood.com/gold. Door DashThey Swoosh, You Save: when any player scores 50 or more points in a game during the 24/25 NBA regular season, DashPass members save 50% on an order, up to $10 off with promo code NBA50. 50% Off 1 Order (Up to $10 Off)Offer valid from 9:00 AM PT through 11:59 PM PT after a 50 point performance in any game during the NBA season on orders placed at participating merchant locations. Valid only in the United States. Maximum value of discount is $10.00. Discount applies to subtotal only; does not apply to fees, taxes, and gratuity. Not valid for pickup. Limit one per person. Not valid for the purchase of alcohol. Fees, taxes, and gratuity still apply. Must have an active DashPass account. Use promo code NBA50 to redeem. See further terms and conditions at https://drd.sh/8ONpZP/.FanDuelRight now, new FanDuel customers can get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Bonus Bets if your first FIVE DOLLAR bet wins!Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everyone, welcome to a special bonus episode of Locked on Lakers for a Saturday. Brian Komenetsky, Andy Komeneski, the Lakers beat the Clippers 106, 102, and a rock fight behind 59 combined points from LeBron and Luca. We'll break down next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Lockdown Lakers. first listen to every day Monday through Friday or sometimes on Saturdays. No matter how or where you get your podcast, it's always free.

Never find paywall and locked on Lakers on YouTube is where over 33,000 subscribers are impressed with the Lakers who just keep winning despite some adverse circumstances. No Rui Hachamura out with a knee injury as suspected. We'll give you an update on him. Austin Reeves left this game in the after what I think he played nine minutes. Nine minutes. Nine minutes. And did not return with a calf injury. We'll give you an update on him before we're done.

But the Lakers nonetheless used 59 points to beat the Clippers 106102, and they continue to move up the Western Conference. Standings, Andy, a game that is described as a rock fight is almost by definition, one that you see as inelegant, not necessarily pretty, but as the old saying goes, it's better to win a rock fight than to lose one. I think there's a win that Laker fans and the team itself can feel really happy about because like you mentioned, they began the game under adverse circumstances just without Rui going up against a full-strength Clippers team,

and then they lose Austin nine minutes into this. So from there, it's like you've got to make this thing happen. Well, mostly full-strength. Norman Powell didn't play. Okay, check that. Norman Powell didn't play. That is a big deal. But there's still down more guys who matter than the clippers.

But yeah, Norm Powell should not be overlooked. But they end up winning this thing really by any means necessary. You get nearly 60 from your two stars in LeBron and Luca. Luca, in particular, had a really good second half that you hope is something that can be built on. 20 of his 31 points. came in the second half, 5 of 11 from the field, two of four from behind the arc, two step back threes in succession,

eight of nine from the line. And also it should be noted. 10 points in the fourth quarter. Yeah, yeah. Help bring it home. Also, should be noted with Luca, for all the focus on his offense, which has come and gone as a Laker,

more gone than come. And I get why it's been focused on because he's Luca Donchich, and he is supposed to be one of the highest operating one-man offenses, you know, historically in the NBA, much less now, his defense has actually been much better than the reputation or the expectations. And tonight, I thought down the stretch, Luca was involved in several good defensive plays as well.

So some really good signs from your star, one of your two star players, especially down the stretch in a game when it was needed. And LeBron, just another very good showing from LeBron who just seems to just from Luca being there, have more energy and the ability to ration it out in ways that doesn't feel like he's just sort of building over the course of four-corrors. Just, again, great work by LeBron. It's, first of all, that all those guys were playing.

I mean, when we finish the show, for Friday coming off the win against Minnesota, Jackson Hayes was a question mark. And LeBron and Luca and Vanderbilt and all those guys played, except for Rui, which we pretty much knew he was not going to be available. But the fact that Vando and Luca are both seen as safe, I guess, to play to play back to backs is a really good sign.

There's no question about that. LeBron still able to do it. Like, you know, no ill effects from playing again on Thursday. And, you know, Luca, I feel, I don't want to make a huge deal out of this, like, you know, almost like we're like infantilizing Luca, like, with every, I do think it's, it was good to see, you know, when he puts up 30,

points that it was actually built on a strong second half because most of his bigger outputs and stuff like that have been more front loaded with the Lakers. And I say that because star players can have good first half, good second half, whatever. But it just to me shows that maybe he's starting to get his legs underneath him a little bit more to care. Because this was a grinder of a game. You know, the Clippers with Kauai, the Clippers without Kauai. are very well coached and play very hard.

The clippers with Kauai do both of those things, except now they have Kauai. So that makes you better. And the Lakers were able to do this. You know, they limited James Hardin in a big way, five of 22 from the floor for him. And, you know, Avita Zubats was really the one that,

that, you know, that was really the only clipper who, and Chris Dunn. Chris Dunn was fantastic. He's had a sneaky good season for them, especially since being put in the starting lineup. It's always cool, too, when guys like that who drafted high, bounced around, seems like they were going to fall out of the league or didn't have a place, make those sort of comebacks. He's been really, really good. Honestly, and I don't mean this in exactly the same way.

Like, you know, Dunn has always been a very good. It's like the one thing you knew from him would be a great defender, but there was no offensive game to speak of. So, like, it was hard to keep him in a lineup. But, you know, he's been averaging like three and a half steals a game over the last month or so. It's crazy. But I think the Lakers, and we can talk about this, maybe going into the week, hope for something like that with Jordan Goodwin because, you know, he has played extremely well.

He played extremely well again on Friday. and was part of a bench unit that was badly needed for the Lakers. We'll get to them in a second. But I just, you know, this was a game, a little bit of a different combination. No, no Austin Reeves. So your stars are going to need to put up a certain amount of points. So we talked about that earlier in the year, like AR, LeBron and AD. Like you need 70 points or whatever, 75, like at a minimum.

Well, when Reeves doesn't play, you're probably going to need close to 60. from LeBron and Luca. And they absolutely 100% provided that. And Luca, especially helping them in the fourth quarter, was a great thing to see. You could tell that Luca was feeling good as this game went along because I don't remember if it was right after the two stepback threes that he hit, but pretty soon after he airballed a three and he was smiling.

Like he actually was smiling and looking over his teammates, his expression and his gestures were somewhere in between, like, I can't believe that happened and my bad. But he was laughing it off. And that I saw was just a really good sign of a guy that wasn't sweating it because he was feeling it. And he's like, I know I'm going to get it back, which he did. And, you know, Ruby, if I had to guess, he's going to miss.

And it's purely a guess. But based on a little bit of what I've seen, people talk about on Twitter like sports medicine people and just the idea that they're going to be if I had to guess cautious and just other people commenting on Twitter well I mean nobody I see commenting on Twitter but people that people that actually are sports medicine people I'm not I'm not listening like just messing like John 70541 smile may be a doctor we don't know well until he calls himself doctor John like I'm just going off actual sports medicine people But like, I'm sure they're going to be cautious.

And frankly, this is not a team known for its quick recoveries anyway. So I'm, I am expecting Rui is going to be out about a week if I'm wrong because he's They are. Yovan Buhat at the, at the athletics said they're going to look at them again in a week. Right knee tendonopathy is the. I'm seeing left. A left knee tendonopathy? Yes.

One of them knees got some, yes, left Patelot. tendonopathy. So one of them knees got some tendinopathy going on in it. And they're going to look at him in a week. And whether he plays in a week or two weeks or whatever, the initial positive sign there is that they're looking in a week. If it was really bad, then you would say, we're not going to look at him for three weeks and whatever. And with Reeves, the reaction was seemed to be reasonably positive that, you know, he might have been held out for somewhat

precautionary reasons. They'll look at him again on Saturday into Sunday, but there wasn't an immediate concern that it might be something long-term, like, frankly, there was with, you could read it on Reddick's face with, with Rui on Thursday.

That said, the Lakers, having just seen Luka miss, you know, 20-something games after injuring his calf on Christmas, I'm sure we'll be very careful with Austin. And Andy, I keep, I've, I mentioned this every show. This is what winning games does. It lets you give Austin Reeves a little bit of extra time. It lets you, you know, make sure that Rui is completely whole.

if you keep winning games while this happens. Lakers moved to 37 and 21. They are a half game behind Memphis, only one game behind Denver for the two seed, and a half game now ahead of Houston and way clear of the Clippers in the six. You've got some flexibility here to make sure players don't play through things that they shouldn't. It is remarkable how far the team has come. You mentioned Jordan Goodwin, and after the game, JJ said that he pictures Jordan Goodwin being a part of the rotation moving forward to which I responded on Twitter. Damn right he does. But like, I was thinking about this.

Jordan Goodwin was signed to a two-way deal near the trade deadline. But for all intents and purposes, he's focused like the equivalent of a buyout market edition and like a really good one at that. Like if you think about him along those lines or like late addition to any team, he is up there in terms of effective additions this late in the season, maybe with any team in the league. Like I wait till the dust is cleared and, you know, every buyout market guy is added across, you know, the league and whatever. But he has been an incredibly important, unexpectedly,

like a really pleasant surprise importance for this team. It was also to a night. The bench really deserves a shoutout. Vando, Vincent, Trey Jemison, Jordan Goodwin, and Dalton Connect. All five of them played very well. You know, they combined for 29 points, which I realize between five people is not a lot. But for this bench unit, it's actually pretty prolific.

But more important than that, their energy, like they're content. continual energy, all five of them, made game-shifting plays like Vanderbilt. There were a couple sequences towards the end of the third where he absolutely put Hardin in a defensive blender really frustrated him. He knocked the ball away, dove on the from Hardin, dove on the ground, drew a loose ballfowl, got sent to the line. There was a play actually where Dalton Connect got matched up against Hardin, defended him really well in space, forced a miss.

Gemison set a few mother of a screen, mothers of a screen, to free up both Luca and LeBron for drives. Like I described them on Twitter. Like, Jemison is basically like a brick wall with legs, the way that he plays. But that physicality created a lot of offense that you wouldn't see in the box score. He also had six rebounds. gave Vincent at four steals in the second half. Like all of those guys,

like we've talked a lot about the depth of this team being a concern. And then it becomes even magnified when Rui and Reeves are not available. Those guys stepped up huge on a night when everybody needed to chip in. Well, we can quit off of this. So we'll be back following the rematch of this one on Sunday. And that one Norman Powell might be available for. He was questionable, I believe, heading into Friday's game. So we'll see.

That'll be another good challenge for the Lakers if he's able to play. And there are other things that we want to unpack a little bit more, like we talked about potential fallout from how hard they are needing to play defensively. You wonder if guys starting to break down a little bit is related to that. But again, they hold an opponent to 102 points. This is really where they've been. The last thing we can say by this, obviously you got your star performances from LeBron and Luca,

like the output that you needed from those guys. And, you know, LeBron continues just to play really high end. And it seems to be revitalized in certain spaces, not all of it, because some of it was starting before the trade. But the last thing I'll say, and we can quit,

is one of the things that I've mentioned all season long about good teams is that, that they sort of play to the game plan and they execute at a level, even when some of their players aren't there. I use Memphis as an example of this all season long. With guys in and out of the lineup have been able to execute. The thunder have had, I mean, Shea's been there all year, but Chet's been in and out and out of time.

Like they've had guys in and out of light. I'm Hartnstein missed some time. And they keep winning. They keep executing. The Lakers didn't do that early in the season. They absolutely are doing it now, where it almost doesn't matter which guys in the rotation are asked to contribute. They are executing the entirety of the game plan.

I think that's really where Jordan Goodwin has fit in incredibly well. They needed another back court player that was, you know, they could use in the rotation to level things out. I think they hope it might be Shake Milton. It has turned out to be Jordan Goodwin. They didn't matter who it was, just needed to be someone. So six points, five rebounds, including three on the offensive glass for Goodwin, two assists, three steals. I know I say this every time I talk about Goodwin, but he plays so much bigger than his size.

And he plays so hard. And if you're building your identity, like, and you need guys, you need to play extraordinarily hard. He's, he will do it for you. I will say to get him on the playoff roster, the Lakers are going to have to cut someone. So they inevitably will do that, I think, before we get there. But he is currently not eligible to be on the playoff roster because. But they have time to do it. They have time to do it.

They'll have to convert them to a regular roster spot and somebody that will get cut. But anyway, Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you go hang out with over 33,000 subscribers, Andy. We, of course, will be back after the game on Sunday, but we can't leave until we tell you about this. The Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fandul when the game tips off. The NBA action is just getting started, and there's no better place to get in on it than Fandle. America's number one sports book with Fandul. You can place live bets throughout a game. So even if you miss the opening tip off or want to bet on a fourth quarter comeback, you can stay in the action.

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