Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Luka Dončic, Rui Hachimura Fuel 4th Quarter Comeback as Lakers Beat Dallas, 116-110

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

In the first half against the Mavericks in Dallas the Lakers played solid, efficient basketball, led (not surprisingly) by Luka Dončić, who always wants to stick it to his old team. Led by 13 at the half! In the third, however, it's like the lights flipped off. They turned the ball over seven times, missed a ton of layups, and were outscored 35-14. It was one of the worst 12-minute stretches of the season. Down 15 with 7:40 to go, the Lakers had a win probability of 1.7%. But then they managed to get the lid off the rim, get a few buckets and turn things up defensively. The Lakers chipped away at the deficit, and used two big Rui Hachimura triples (including one four-point play) to pull even and then ahead. LeBron, who was VERY quiet in the first half, came alive later in the game, including on defense. And of course Luka Dončić, who was two rebounds shy of a triple double. 33 points on 8-15 from the floor and 14-15 from the free throw line, plus eight rebounds and 11 assists. It wasn't a flashy game, but it was incredibly effective. Luka runs his record to 4-0 against his former team. A solid bounce back from a disappointing performance Thursday against the Clippers.  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/everydayerclub Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Turbo TaxFor a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Take taxes off your plate and get back to your life. Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today.  Rocket MoneyLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at http://RocketMoney.com/LOCKEDONGametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONfor $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.

Lukadaj and Rui Hachemura fuel a great fourth quarter comeback for the Lakers as they win in Dallas. 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 making Locked on Lakers first listen to every day. Monday through Friday, sometimes on weekends, even on holidays. Whether you're listening through Apple, iTunes, Spotify, maybe you're one of the 37,000 subscribers. Plus to the Lockton Lakers YouTube channel, no matter how you do it,

you are part of making the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network in this or any other known universe. Brian Kamenetsky with Andy Kamenetsky, covered the Lakers for nearly 20 years with the LA Times and ESPN and the athletic and ESPN Radio. And Andy, this was another revenge game for Luca Donchich. He goes into Dallas. He comes out a winner again. He is now 4-0 against his former club as the Lakers use a big fourth quarter comeback.

the odds, Andy, the win probability for the Lakers with seven and a half minutes left was 1.7. It didn't stay that way. It also at that point didn't feel that high. Even 1.7 felt ambitious. The Lakers saying there's a chance. Barely. Because, I mean, the Lakers played really well in the first half. They were up double digits.

And then the third quarter was just this disastrous cocktail of smoked layups and inexplicably stupid turnovers, stupid decisions. And there was really nobody who did not have a hand in the disaster. Like I can go through and find Marcus Smart throwing a really terrible turnover that turned into a Dallas score. Luca called for an offensive foul. DeAndre Aiton, smoking what? but felt like his 500th layup in this game.

This is the, this is the, offensively at least, the strangest and worst game, DeAndre's play. Honestly, I'm kind of concerned about his vision after getting poked in the eye.

I'm not kidding because he was missing some incredibly makeable shots. I mean, he did, I guess, see the ball well enough to grab 11 rebounds, five on the offensive glass. So for real,

kudos on that. But I mean, get the one. Although like five of those offense, were on one play. Yes, and they were all his own miss. They were all DeAndre collecting his own miss. And again, I really think he might need to get the people's

get down. You're right, Andy, like that third quarter, like the 116 was 110 was the final, but like that third quarter was, like they played a really good first quarter, really good second quarter. The third quarter was arguably the worst quarter they played this season. And then they came back and, at the very least had a really good end to the fourth quarter. I was going to say because the fourth quarter didn't even start out promisingly either.

Like some of the low lights directly out of the third quarter, Drew Timmy, Airball to three. And that led to Brandon Williams, who was very good in this game, driving inside, drawing an and one on a foul on Aiton. That pushed Dallas's lead up to double digits. LeBron then in a transition drive off a Dallas Miss, smoked the layup. That led to whichever Martin is in doubt, Caleb Martin, hitting a three on the other end. Luca had a shock clock violation. Later on, Rui had a shock clock violation.

I mean, it really was just flat out disastrous for a while until the moment that it really felt like things were turning around, Rui drove to the rim and got blocked, but he made this incredible save of the ball just trying to retain the possession, kicked the ball to LeBron in the corner. LeBron hits a three, and that's when it felt like the Lakers were starting

to get some life. At that point, they'd cut the lead to 10. And then from there, the Lakers started playing much smarter offensively. They really cranked up the defense, some big shots from Luca, some big shots from Rui. Marcus Smart had some good plays on both ends. And the Lakers just steadily regained control of this game.

And it ran away with it kind of. I mean, the game was, you know, it ended up in a six-point game. But, you know, it's not like they were following up into the end. Like the last minute was really not in doubt. So a big win for the Lakers, obviously, this was one of those games that was like a real, I don't want to say it was a quiet game given the statistical performance from Luca, but it was so efficient and like kind of workmanlike in this. It wasn't like super flashy like a lot of Luca's big time stat lines can be.

He ended up with 33 points, 8 of 15 shooting, 14 of 15 from the line, 15 trips to the line is a big deal, especially given how the Lakers, you know, this trend league-wide, Andy, of not sending teams to the line as much a big part of their game and they need to have it. Eight rebounds, 11 assists. He had a steel and a block and a huge drawn charge in full order as part of that comeback. This was a really good game from Luke. Yeah, and a really good game for this team.

I'm seeing a couple of people point out in the comments, and it's true. this is a game where the Lakers could have given up and just felt like we cannot get out of our own way tonight for whatever reason. And we're just going to resign ourselves to the fact that this is not our night. And they ultimately regain their composure. I realize Dallas is a very inconsistent team. They're missing a few players, namely Anthony Davis. although he was warming up pre-game or not even warming up, but just going through some stuff.

And given the way everybody returns against the Lakers, I was waiting for this announcement that Anthony Davis was returning like three weeks ahead of schedule. At least three weeks, like playing one-handed. Right, exactly. He obviously didn't play, but Daniel Gafford did return. Old friend Max Christie had a phenomenal game. But the Lakers just, again, they, they regrouped.

This was, I believe, a three or four game winning streak for Dallas so that they were playing pretty well. They've been playing well and the Lakers are now two and one on this road trip. The Clippers loss, you at least saw them play well

in the second half before ultimately I think kind of running out of gas but the last I think week and a half has been we can talk about this more at length in the full show heading into Monday, but I think the last week and a half, there have been some pretty promising signs for this team and especially knowing Austin Reeves is expected to be back on this road trip earlier

than either one of us thought he'd be back. I didn't think he'd be back for the All-Star Break. Neither did I. I absolutely did not think that would happen. And I will say, like, they have stopped the bleeding. I think it is fair to say like, you know, look, the Clipper game, especially that first half was problematic. They, you know, they've struggled at different things. It's not like everything is fixed. Like, you know, the bench is still a problem. Having Rui be productive off of it makes a difference. Jared Vanderbilt hit a couple threes in this game, which, you know, it's not so much Ken Vando hit threes. It's just if he's going to be playing, you know, a reasonable amount of minutes, although I only played 12 in this one, but like over the course of

recent games, if he's going to get minutes, you need some kind of contribution. You know, Jake Laravia had a couple of big buckets and hit a couple threes. Like they just, they've got all over the place, but he made some big plays down the strength. They have steadied things out a little bit. And I think, you know, the the feeling of doom of like when they were playing really poorly and could not get a stop against anyone. And that feeling of wondering whether or not they were ever going to be able to figure out how to play some defense again, I do think they've moved past that and are kind of back to being the team that they were early in the year, which is very good, winning a lot of games

with flaws. Yeah. And pointing out for now. Yeah. Pointing out some of the contributions in the. that fourth quarter when they turned things around. LeBron, who I mentioned before, was part of the missed layup brigade, but in the fourth quarter, five of seven for 11 points, three rebounds, two assists, a steel and a block.

A lot of big moments from LeBron down the stretch. He was very good defensively in that quarter. Yeah, yeah. I mean, LeBron had a very good fourth quarter. Luca, we mentioned, was instrumental in sparking that comeback, nine points, two assists and a rebound. Rui had seven points in the fourth quarter, including a huge four-point play. This was, by the way, one of those times, I guarantee when kids going over the film with his players, Rui got this four-point play because he faked a pass at the arc and then got the defender to bite on the shot attempt.

And the kid's going to be like, guys, he's not passing. Like, he's not passing. Know your personnel. No, Rue is, Ria Chimora is not passing in that moment. But Rui was very big down the stretch. I mentioned Marcus Smart. He had seven points, four rebounds, including a huge putback dunk on a Rui miss, three offensive rebounds, just a lot of guys making big moments happen in the fourth quarter.

And this is a team. I mean, at this point, we have seen if you put them in a close game in the fourth quarter, at minimum, they will make a game of. Their execution tends to get better. I mean, the 14 and 2 in clutch time, which, you know, this game, they now returned this game to clutch time status and won it. So they're now 14 and 2. Technically, the second loss was actually the Clipper game. Where they, again, battled back into a clutch time category. and then couldn't pull it out.

I just, I think, you know, you mentioned, like, they could have quit in this game. I think they realized, like, Dallas is not coming back against Dallas. It's not the same thing as coming back against Oklahoma City, not coming. Like, they did it against the Clippers, who were a much better team. And so the game is still there. And, you know, they do tend to turn up their execution again, you know, as these games get deeper, which is good. On both sides of the ball, they got to have it.

So yeah, they play Monday in Chicago, Wednesday in Cleveland, two winnable games. The calves are a little bit beat up and have been kind of up and down all season. So there are some wins out here, even though it's a long road stretch. We'll see what they do. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 37,000 plus subscribers handy, but we cannot leave without telling people about this. Well, that Locked on Lakers is brought to you by game time. And during basketball season, there's nothing like being in the building, the energy, the crowd, that first big run that gets everyone on their feet or the fourth quarter run if you were watching the Lakers in Dallas because there were a lot of Laker fans in that building.

Luca actually got some of them sweet passes and stuff like that, which is very, very generous of them. Fans, they didn't need game time for that. No, no, no, you needed Luca time. But if you are not a close personal friend. Everyone else needed game time. Right. If you're not a close personal friend of Luca Donchich, and you want to be there for the big moments, and you want to know what the tickets are going to cost, like really going to cost because

Luke is not paying for him. That's where Game Time comes in. The GameTime app gives the power back to the fans, making it incredibly easy to score amazing tickets, fast, simple without the guesswork. Browsing the GameTime app is straightforward, intuitive. Finding tickets takes just a few taps. Prices include the fee up front, so the total is, crystal clear from the start.

And whether it's an NBA game or another live event, everything is right there in one place. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app. Create an account. Use the code Lockdown NBA. That's L-O-C-E-D-O-N-N-B-A. For 20 bucks off your first purchase, download the GameTime app today. Get in on the action.

Lockdown Lakers is also brought to by Fandul. Fridays are already feeling different during basketball season, and Van Duel is making them even better. Friday night before games tip off. FanDwell offers fans a new way to kick off the weekend with NBA Happy Hour. It's your official pregame. A limited time, a limited time window where special offers drop right inside of the Fandual app before the action starts. Fridays from 6 to 7.30 Eastern. That's 3 to 4.30 Pacific time and become appointment viewing with NBA Happy Hour. Opening the Fandual app during Happy Hour always brings something new. Boasts, bonuses, and surprises. Adds extra energy to Friday night basketball. without overthinking it. Friday night, our house is pizza night. That's also exciting. So before tip off, check the Fandual app to make sure you see what's dropping during NBA Happy Hour.

Every Friday from 6 to 7.30 Eastern, 3 to 4.30 Pacific, a little basketball, a little action, a whole lot of Friday energy. That's NBA happy hour only on Fandual, the official sportsbook partner of the NBA. We'll see everyone tomorrow.