Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Without Luka Dončić & Deandre Ayton, Lakers Beat Golden State 105-99

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

The Lakers knew they'd be without Luka Dončić ahead of Saturday's 105-99 win over Golden State at the Crypt, thanks to a groin injury suffered the other night against Philadelphia. They learned shortly before it started that Deandre Ayton would join him in street clothes, thanks to knee soreness. It's hard to say the Lakers were sharp or looked particularly excellent on Saturday, but they won, and as it was against Philadelphia, they got contributions from basically everyone who played. LeBron James wasn't great, turning the ball over seven times against 10 assists, and making only six of 17 shots. But six Lakers finished in double figures, and guys like Maxi Kleber who didn't reach 10 points made a lot of important plays. New guy Luke Kennard was a very positive presence, making four of his seven shots, including 2-4 from downtown. But as James pointed out in his ESPN on-court interview after the game, it was the other stuff that went beyond shooting that made an impression. It's pretty clear Kennard will be a tool JJ Redick will enjoy deploying as the season goes on. The Lakers get a big win at home, keeping up with the Joneses in the Western Conference, where the gap between the third seed and the seventh seed is only a couple of games.  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.  ZocDocStop putting off those doctor appointments and go to https://Zocdoc.com/LOCKEDONNBA to find and instantly book a doctor you love today.WayfairGet last-minute hosting essentials, gifts for all your loved ones, and decor to celebrate the holidays for WAY less.Head to https://Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style. Every home.  5-Hour ENERGYHave your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at 5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. 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/LOCKEDONNBAIndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcastGametimeToday'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 sponsored by FanDuel. The Winter Games are on. And there’s no better way to follow them than with a bet on FanDuel. FanDuel - Play your game. 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.

No Luca, no DeAndre Aiton, but the Lakers use a great team effort. Six players and double figures. And the new guy looked pretty good. 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 Lockdown Lakers first listen to every day.

Monday through Friday, sometimes on weekends and even on holidays, no matter how or where you get your podcasts. This one's always going to be free, never behind paywall. And, of course, you are always, always welcome to be one of the 37,000 subscribers to the Lockdown Lakers YouTube channel, no matter how you do it, Spotify, Apple, the YouTube channel, you are part of making the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network in this or any other known universe. No Andy tonight. So just me, Brian Komenetsky, been covering the Lakers for nearly 20 years, the SPN, the L.A.

Times, and the athletic. And in that time, you run into difficult stretches, unfortunate things like, you know, Luca Donchich, not able to play on Saturday night, learning about 20 minutes before the tip. DeAndre Aitn wouldn't play either. So the Lakers, you know, a little bit shorthanded, obviously. They are facing a Golden State team without Steph Curry. So you won't hear a lot of sympathy from Warriors' fans. fans when it comes to this.

But, you know, the Lakers didn't look great in this. It was a very sluggish and uninspiring first half for both teams, but they do eventually get it going enough in the second half to build and maintain a lead. They win 105.99's the final score. And look, what was great about this one, it was a little bit different than the Philadelphia win because LeBron James. 10 assists in this game,

had a couple good buckets at the beginning of the third quarter to get the Lakers going. But overall, another difficult and relatively inefficient night for LeBroni. He had seven turnovers. Now it was 15 turnovers in his last two games. He was only 6 of 17 from the floor. So this was not the strongest game.

LeBron hopefully will play this year. He did not put the team on his shoulders. Austin Reeves was good in this game, but it wasn't like he was against Philadelphia the other night. A.R. coming off the bench, still with that minutes limit. He finishes with 16 points, 5 of 10 from 4, 6 to 7 from 3 point range. He had five turnovers against his 8 assists. So, you know, a pretty good game from Reeves.

He was able to get downhill, able to get into the paint and to the line, but he is limited there because of the minutes restriction. So what the Lakers got here, in this in this game it looked like maybe they might be able to kind of put the the warriors away early that didn't happen they got up by i believe 12 in the third as much as 10 in the fourth but golden state to their credit they play hard um those guys that they have even without step know what they're doing they all run the system well and uh they can be a difficult team to cover so they didn't quit in this game the lakers got six players in double figures we need to

Luke Kinnard here in just a second as one of those six guys. But this was a very, very balanced win for the Lakers. You had Rui Hachamura, who was excellent, excellent offensively in this game, 7 of 10 from the floor, 4 or 5 from 3 point range. They need that ability to stretch the floor. Very typical Rui game. A lot of offense, not a lot of other stuff in the box score. he did have one really impressive block in the second half.

So that was good. Marcus Smart had 15 points. He made the line nine times, made eight of those. He had a couple blocks. The Lakers actually defended the rim pretty well, 10 blocks on the night. Jared Vanderbilt was outstanding in this game. He finished with 13 and 8 to go along with a couple steals and a block.

So six players of the nine that took the floor for the Lakers, finished in double figures. And one of these guys who didn't, Maxi Claibah, played 28 minutes in this game. He had seven rebounds and assist. He had a block and was very strong defensively, particularly down the stretch. He actually had the best plus minus on the team with a plus 12 in his 28 minutes. So six guys in double figures. Another guy in Maxi Claibah who added a second straight, really good performance coming off of a nice game against the Sixers on 30.

Thursday. So I was, I think as a Lakers fan, you would be, you would be pleased with their ability to come through and win this game under less than ideal circumstances, but still something, again, you're not going to get any sympathy from Warriors fans to say the least. Let's talk about Luke Conard, though. I see a lot of people in the chat as we're doing this live on YouTube who are, seemed pretty excited about what Kinnard did. He hit his first shot as a Laker. That was a three-pointer. And you really got a sense of how Kinnard is going to be useful for the Lakers. First and foremost, J.J. Radick said this before the game. It has been true. If you sort of followed the guy throughout his group, he's not a great athlete.

You can't put him in isolation and have him break players down on the dribble, get to the bucket out. None of that stuff's ever going to happen. He's also not a great defender. I think you could tell on Saturday he is a willing defender. He is, I think, sort of spatially aware of where he's supposed to be and tries on that side. But he's not super duper athletic. But what he is is a pretty well-rounded player.

You can give him the ball and have him initiate your offense, make that triggering pass. When he puts the ball on the floor, he is capable of finding. the open man. He did that a couple times. You can see they actually used him a couple times in pick and roll sets. So, you know, he's a pretty smart and pretty versatile player. And there are a few plays in particular, I think, where you could really tell what he was going to do. There's a play, I believe it was Reeves in the first half. He's driving the lane.

And Brandon Pajamsky is guarding Kinnard in the strong side corner. And he can't move. He couldn't, he did not come over to help. because he knew you can't help off of Kinnard, particularly not Kinnard standing where he was with that corner three. That's like giving up three points. So, you know, you had a much cleaner path to the basket for Kinnard. And, you know, again, you could see how that was going to, you know, that kind of thing is going to happen. You know, the Lakers now have two guys with legitimate gravity that you have to pay attention to in that supporting cast with Rui and Kinnard. And J.J.

is going to be able to keep one of those guys out on the floor at all times if he wants to. And so, you know, Mr. TD 3-3-1 on the chat notes, Canard can attack closeouts and make plays. He did that. There was another play, you know, where his gravity, you get a hard close-out. Conard puts the ball on the floor, gets into the paint and kicked into the corner for a three. I believe it was, Rue, I forget exactly who knocked that one down. But point being, he got the ball onto the floor. I think it might have actually been smart in hindsight,

but he gets the ball on the floor, can make the next pass, he can find open guys. LeBron talked about that in his ESPN interview after the game. And then, you know, there was another play where Kinnard got the ball in the corner, and the defense was so, Golden State was so concerned about getting over there to close out on him.

Completely ignored Jared Banderbilt on the basket, but Conard makes the easy pass to Vando for a dunk. It's just, and look, Conard is not an all-star. But what he is going to do is like that kind of effect, because he's shooting 49% from three-point range. His career is one where he is a 40-something, 44% I think 44% career three-point shooter. he is on every scouting report as a guy you cannot leave open. You just can't.

And so when Jared Vanderbilt's in that corner, when Marcus Smart is in that corner, when Jake La Ravia is in that corner, teams will be willing to sag off and let those guys shoot. They're going to be nights when they burn you. Vando actually hit two of his three-threes in this one, both from the corner. But in the previous four or five games,

it seems like Vando's been shooting those out of a cannon. They've looked awful. So you're going to live with that as a defense, and you're not going to adjust and you're not going to spread your defense out or keep guys at home. Smart, same kind of way. He's not a great shooter. Some nights he gets hot.

Kinnard with Rui, he will keep defenses honest in that way. And it's an element the Lakers have not had. You know, Rui is in the front court, certainly not in the back court. They need this knockdown kind of shooter. Luca is going, you know, Luca thrives with shooters around him. Austin Reeves is going to, I think, be very successful with. It's just a good pickup, good basketball player, makes smart things. He will at least try to do what you want him to do defensively.

The other bit of good news coming out of this game, JJ Redick talked about it before the game. Luca is believed they are optimistic that he has avoided serious injury. Obviously, everybody knows he came out of that game against Philadelphia on Thursday with a hamstring. And, you know, look, I mean, Denver's lost Aaron Gordon to a hamstring twice now this season. Peyton Watson just left with a hamstring. These things are scary. And the Lakers obviously cannot afford to lose Luca for all that long over the course of the season. He didn't play.

and this one, he was doubtful, I think, Friday, and they quickly moved him to not going to play, but with the idea that he has avoided serious injury. So will he play in these final two games before the break? It wouldn't shock me if he did. We'll learn more, a little bit more on Monday. The Lakers finish with an undermanned Oklahoma City team that will not have Shea Gilgis, Alexander,

or likely Jalen Williams. So those guys, you know, they lost to Houston on Saturday. They've been battling injuries. It wouldn't surprise me if Lucas sat that one out. They play the following night, second night of a back-to-back against St. Antonio. The Lakers cannot afford to make that injury worse. You know, hopefully you can split one of those games if he doesn't play.

But either way, the All-Star break comes at a perfect time. for Luca Donch, you get that extra time with no games to be able to sit out and heal. Hopefully, at the very least, the Lakers will have him back and ready to go, not feeling those effects following the All-Star break. Okay. So you guys know how this works. The everydayers know how this works. We've reached the point in the show where we've got to tell you who this thing is brought to you by because, yeah. We've covered everything here. I do want to let you know The Lockton Lakers course on YouTube is where you can go hang out

with over 37,000 subscribers to the program. We will be back on Monday with a full show. But first I got to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel. And I'm going to see if I can find.

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