After locking up the third seed on Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers are feeling good about their chances to make a deep playoff run. According to sharpshooting guard Austin Reaves, his team has enough firepower to win the West and he believes they will be a tough matchup for whoever they face in the battles to come.
“High, very high,” said Reaves on his opinion of the Laker (via Spectrum SportsNet). “We believe in what we got here. With the way we went and performed the first game against the best team in the NBA, just shows what we can do… with the talent we have, we have two guys in Bron and Luka that can dominate the game in so many ways. If I were a coach, it would be very tough to prepare for those two and then the supporting cast that we have. We got guys that do the dirty work, and shoot the ball extremely well. We got a good overall team.”
The Lakers are 2-1 over their last three games, good enough to secure home-court advantage in the first round. Before their latest win over the Dallas Mavericks, they split a two-game series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are the best team in the West at 67-14.
Before the Luka Doncic trade, the Lakers were barely scraping by as a playoff contender and they struggled to stay consistent on the court. They had been mostly irrelevant since the 2019-20 campaign, but the acquisition of Luka Doncic in February changed their trajectory.
In one night, their entire identity changed and LeBron James went from the leading star to the best sidekick Luka Doncic has ever had. With No. 77 in the rotation, the Lakers have been thriving as a team and their record over the past few weeks is nothing short of impressive.
Since the Luka trade, the Lakers are 21-12 with one of the best offenses in the NBA. Doncic, who had to adjust on the fly, has already found a rhythm in Los Angeles with averages of 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 7.7 assists on 43.8% shooting over the last 28 games.
LeBron James has done everything in his power to ease the transition and he’s made it clear with his words and actions that this is Luka’s team now. At 40 years old, LeBron is ready to take a backseat to Doncic and let the Slovenian superstar lead the show for the foreseeable future.
Even though Luka’s still fresh on the scene in LA, there’s the confidence that he and LeBron James can pull off something special in the West. If they can stay healthy and their defense holds up, the Lakers will have a shot to beat any team in their way of a championship.
At the very least, figuring out how to neutralize Austin Reaves, Luka Doncic, and LeBron James will prove to be a real challenge and it will take an amazing defensive effort to slow down their scoring pace. With just one game to go before the start of the playoffs, now is the time for the Lakers to lock in and reap the rewards of their blockbuster trade.
