Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Luka Dončić Leaves Game With Leg Contusion, Undermanned Lakers Lose to Clippers

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

The Lakers have not been an offensive juggernaut this year on a game-to-game basis, and on Saturday against the Clippers at the Intuit Dome arrived without Austin Reaves, Deandre Ayton and as a late addition to the injury report, Rui Hachimura. That's a lot of production in street clothes. And then Luka Dončić took the floor, and looked uncomfortable physically from the jump. It only got worse. By halftime he was limping around pretty clearly... and then he didn't return for the third and fourth quarters. So now it was LeBron James leading a game-but-limited crew, and the result was a not-at-all-surprising 103-88 loss to the LAC. Honestly, you can't fault the effort from James (36/4/3) or the work the rest of the guys put in. But the Lakers couldn't shoot to save their lives (a catastrophic 6-33 from downtown, or 16%, and under 40% from the floor, overall), and ultimately that cost them. Really, were the Clippers an even competent squad, they'd have blown this thing open and kept it that way. So we'll see what the injury report says as the Lakers head into Tuesday's game against the Suns, then Christmas Day against the Rockets.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky  Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclubSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashFrom tipoff to overtime, stay in your bag and order on DoorDash.Get snacks, drinks, gear — whatever gets you through the season — delivered right to your door.DoorDash. In your bag all season long.PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use codeLOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.Click Here:https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNBARobinhoodYou expect more from yourself. Expect more from your money. Get started today at robinhood.com/yourmoney. Your money. Your move. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Options, futures, and crypto trading carry significant risk and may not suit all investors. Securities offered through Robinhood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Futures trading is offered by Robinhood Derivatives, LLC and not SPIC or FDIC protected. Crypto offered through Robinhood Crypto, LLC (NMLS ID 1702840), not FDIC or SIPC protected. Portfolio management offered by Robinhood Strategies, an SEC-registered advisor.GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA and NFL seasons are here, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now. 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.

Lakers put up a good fight on Saturday, but we're missing too many dudes. How much offense are there's going to be on the sideline and for how long that's 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 helping make the Locked On podcast network, the number one sports podcast network in this or any other known universe. I'm Brian Kamenetsky with Andy Kamenetsky.

This is locked on Lakers, of course. The Lakers lose to the clippers, 103 to 88, which, you know, that score actually gives you an idea of what kind of game this was. The Lakers already short-handed coming into this game, missing a ton of offense with Austin Reeves, still on the sideline, DeAndre Aiton on the sideline, and now joined by Rui Hachamura,

in terms of three of your bigger offensive of cogs, Andy, if you are a Laker fan. And Luca Donchich was moving poorly, I would say, from the jump. Played through the first half, did not play particularly well or certainly not efficiently, and then didn't play in the second half. So we'll get to, you know, Lakers put up a good fight. They made this game much closer than it had any right to be. Clippers really struggled to put them away despite the fact.

back to Lakers, again, 88 points, an enormous amount of trouble finding some buckets. But Andy, like, they're running out of dudes and they're running out quickly. Yeah, Rui, JJ said before the game, he is hoping, it's like a hip-growing thing

that he's hoping won't keep him out more than three to five days, which could theoretically get him back for the Christmas Day game against the Rockets. He also said that Austin Reeves and DeAndre Atenre Ait and Arkin close to returning but did not give anything definitive, much less lining them up to play Tuesday versus the Sons. But to your point, the Lakers were already dealing with a shorthanded state.

And then we weren't given any details in JJ's postgame press conference about what happened with Luca. J.J. said he didn't know. And what I found, though, really... They call it a lower leg contusion. You could see clips of them kind of rubbing on what looked like his calf and stuff. So like that seems to be what it was as a put. A contusion, fancy word for bruise is different in theory than a strain or a pull. But you know, you got to be careful with all of it. Well, my point being, it's not even clear when this happened during the game.

it would not surprise me at all. It would not surprise me at all if this is something that happened to Luca either during pregame warmups or from the game in Utah. Because from minute one, Luca looked really just uncomfortable physically out of sorts. He opened the game, O of 5. He finished with 12 points on 4th, 13 shooting, 1 of 6 from behind the arc, four turnovers and he there was one point during the game where I tweeted out at cambrothers this is probably a few minutes or so into the second quarter halfway through the second

quarter what's Slovenian for get Luca out of this game before he hurts himself because he just looked so just uncomfortable and to his credit he clearly wanted to try to get through this thing and then said at halftime he just couldn't do it anymore so credit luca for trying, but it was just obvious right from the beginning that he wasn't right. What also became glaringly obvious and granted, this is exacerbated even further by the absences of Austin, D'Andre, and Rui, but just how much the Lakers' offense completely falls out of whack if Lucas even just out there but physically, you know, diminished, much less what was going on there.

Like from minute one, the team just looked completely out of sorts. Well, there's that. I mean, and it's worth noting. And I was at the beginning of the show, I was talking about guys who were missing as offensive contributors. You know, Rui, Austin, D'Andre, three big parts of the Lakers'Akers' offense. Even when Rui doesn't put up a lot of points, his skill set is very important to the Lakers, you know, they shot from three point range, six of 38 from beyond the arc.

That's 16%. I believe they said that's like the worst performance in Lakers history. It's or in a long time. Rui obviously helps that. You know, you know, it's at least going to be Andy 21%, 22%, if you ever. And I say that jokingly. But if the Lakers, shot even just regular bad from three in this game, they might actually win. And so... Between that, miss free throws.

Like, if they had shot just a normal bad percentage from behind the arc... 27%. Right. And missed three more threes or something like that. Right. And missed six free throws as opposed to nine free throws, and six still isn't very good. You're right.

They might end up winning this game because, my God, the Clippers seem to... incapable, disinterested, or both in what they were playing the Clippers, like a team that was torn between knowing they should win this game because it's the right professional thing to do. And also knowing that like with every win, the odds of this thing getting blown up and, you know, me, Clipper Player X getting traded somewhere different decreases by 10% and I want to get the hell out of here. It just, it's hard to picture a great.

group that looks like they're having less fun than the Clippers. Like even when they made these little runs and hit a couple big shots, like you could see there, these moments like, it just there's nothing there. There's again, my condolences

to Darien over at Locked on Clippers. But that's a, that's a him problem, not an us problem. It's still fascinating to watch. I, I just, you look at this and like the Lakers don't have, that's a lot of scoring, but then you take away Gabe Vincent, and you're also down a ball handler. And so it's just very difficult to get into the offense. It's very difficult

to put together good possessions. They managed to, I think, create some through a lot of hard work. I mean, Jake LaRavia was fantastic, particularly on the offensive class. Excuse me. And, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence because Luca couldn't move. So when they, when he was done in the second half, the defense picked up a little bit and stuff like that. And they sort of efforted their way into a close game. LeBron is, I think, rounding into form. Certainly played very well on Saturday, 38 minutes, 36 points,

on a pretty efficient 15 of 28. So there are some things to like about it. Marcus Smart was one of 12, 0 of 9. So, you know, from three, the entire Marcus Smart experience here. They were just, they were awful offensively, understandably so. But just be the big question just becomes how long people are going to be out because you can't expect the Lakers to compete meaningfully against good teams with the level of offensive talent they were able to put on the floor on Saturday.

Yeah, it was just brutal to watch. Again, credit to these guys for really working their asses off, trying to make a real game of it. You mentioned LeBron and Jake. I thought Vando's effort throughout this game was really, really good. I thought while he was at times kind of wild in terms of shot selection and stuff like that, I thought Nick Smith Jr.'s effort was really good in this, just trying to make things happen. He's trying to make things. And JJ put him on the floor for a lot of the second half, obviously no Luca.

because of all of these guys, he's one of the only people on the roster for, you know, and he's not a perfect guy, not an efficient player, a 39.5% shooter. But he'll get out there and try to create some offense. Yeah, I mean,

the spirit of these guys during this game tonight, I thought was really commendable given the circumstances. Like, it would have been very easy for them to collectively pack it in. I don't even mean because, like, shrugging your shoulders defeatist attitude, but more like, let's be pragmatic. We've got another game in a couple days. LeBron is pushing 41.

It might be the safer option to just shut this thing down. And they really just kept pushing through, maybe sensing, all joking aside, this Clippers team seems to have no interest in winning, no ability to win. If the Clippers, to their credit, I guess, managed. When the Lakers got down, I think eight was the tightest it was, eight or nine. And it was like you could feel like if the, if the Lakers could get the next bucket, this is in the fourth quarter, that there was a chance that they, like you could feel like the Clippers could fold completely. They went on a 13-0 run to start the fourth. The Lakers did.

And they were right on that border. The Clippers did hit a couple threes. And so they got the thing back. And then they were about to make another push as LeBron. was coming on, Smith committed a terrible foul on Hardin on a three point and one. Yeah. And that that was, it was one of these things. They probably weren't going to put LeBron back in, but the group without LeBron

pushed far enough that they were within, you know, 10 points or so with four minutes left. You got to put LeBron back in. By the way, this, you know, we'll talk, I'm sure, more about any ramifications from this game, any updates we may get about health. or whatever. But this is what we were talking about. And I know a lot of the viewers and listeners got upset with this, but we were saying why we didn't like seeing the Lakers coast for three quarters versus Utah and then finally decide to try in the fourth quarter, like if they had

played with that type of effort to start the game against Utah, everybody might have been able to play fewer minutes because they might have been able to just play with a lead from the outset and control the game to the point. Like, that type of effort is just what you want to see from start to finish, if for no other reason than to try to make the most of the games that you play and make them like useful exercises in getting better as opposed to just, I know stacking wins matters, but you do want to try to make them serve a purpose. But anyway, it was a really good effort by the Lakers tonight considering the circumstances.

So ultimately, you know, there's not much you can do about this. There's really no one to fault in this. It is just, again, a question of when are guys going to be back on the floor? Hopefully, certainly by the marquee game on Christmas, you want to see everybody. But, you know, particularly at his age, you don't want to put LeBron in a position where he's got to really carry an offensively challenged group for very long. So we'll see what happens on Tuesday. obviously we'll have a full show for you on Monday, hopefully with some updates Sunday from the Lakers. It'd be hard to have a practice with nobody available, but we'll see if we get some updates on their health.

Thank you to everybody again for making Lockdown Lakers your first listen to every day, making us the number one sports podcast network in any or a known universe. But we cannot leave it before we tell people this. Well, that Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Robin Hood. nobody knows your money goals better than you. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money with tools that work as hard as you do. Locking in on every opening, beating your PR, beating it again, channel that drive into your money. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money, trade stocks and EFTs, options, futures and crypto, all on one platform. You can now build and

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