The Los Angeles Lakers are flying high at the moment. The Lakers took down the Utah Jazz 108-106 at the Delta Center on Sunday to extend their win streak to four, and they are now 12-4 in the 2025-26 NBA season. It’s not a start many had envisioned with LeBron James missing the first few weeks of the campaign due to sciatica.
James made his long-awaited debut in the first game against the Jazz on Tuesday, and the Lakers are now 2-0 with him. The two wins were quite different, however. The Lakers won the first meeting 140-126, but were unable to replicate their success offensively in the second. On the flip side, they were pretty woeful defensively in the first but managed to keep the Jazz in check, for the most part, in the second.
Luka Doncic believed the four-day break between the games negatively affected the Lakers. Head coach JJ Redick, meanwhile, credited the defense for the win and stated they are one of the worst shooting teams in the NBA at the moment. Redick doesn’t believe they are actually that bad and is hopeful the outside shots will start to go in sooner rather than later.
Here’s what else has been going on with the Lakers.
Deandre Ayton
The Lakers were fully healthy for the first time this season in the first game against the Jazz, but the injury bug didn’t stay away for long. Deandre Ayton suffered a right knee contusion in the first quarter of the second game when he collided with rookie Ace Bailey.
Ayton exited the game midway through the second quarter and has now been ruled out for the upcoming clash with the Los Angeles Clippers at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday. The extent of the injury still hasn’t been disclosed by the team.
Ayton has averaged 15.5 points, 8.4 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.7 steals, and 0.9 blocks per game for the Lakers in 2025-26. The 27-year-old has been one of their more impressive role players, and his absence is a blow.
Luka Doncic
Redick mentioned the shooting struggles, and Doncic is one of the players who hasn’t shot the ball well from deep. The Slovenian is currently at 31.1% from three and is on track for the worst three-point shooting season of his career. There is reason to believe, though, that the shots will start going in eventually.
If we go back to the 2022-23 season, Doncic shot 29.4% from three over his first 16 games for the Dallas Mavericks. It was an even worse start than this one, but he managed to turn things around. Doncic went 35.7% from three the rest of the way, and you’d imagine something similar will happen this time around as well.
Despite the shooting struggles, Doncic is averaging 34.5 points, 8.8 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.0 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game for the Lakers in 2025-26. Those are ridiculous numbers, and you shouldn’t be surprised to know that he made his way to the record books by putting them up.
Doncic has now become the first player in NBA history to record 400+ points and 100+ assists in the first 12 games of a season. He is currently at 414 points and 107 assists.
LeBron James
There was a lot of talk about how different the Lakers might look with James, and a few things have certainly stood out. Most notably, the Lakers are playing much faster.
In the first 14 games of the season, the Lakers’ pace was 98.77, which ranked 22nd in the NBA. With James, the Pace has shot up to 105.3 in the last two games. That would be the second-best mark in the league over the course of the season.
The Lakers are also getting a lot more fast-break points with James. They averaged 12.6 points a game when he was out, and that number has gone up to 20.5 in these last two games. It will be interesting to look at these numbers over the course of the season.
