open for a big 3 last week<\/a> against the visiting Orlando Magic, a game capped by James getting a belated pass from Don\u010di\u0107 as time wound down. In the next game, on the road against the Phoenix Suns, Grayson Allen drove by Don\u010di\u0107 and kicked to the corner James vacated to help inside to Collin Gillespie, who swung the ball past Reaves to an open Royce O\u2019Neale for a game-winning 3.<\/p>\nThe Lakers recovered from those close losses with deodorizing blowout wins against the remains of the Golden State Warriors on the road and against the league-worst Sacramento Kings at home. The visit to Golden State was particularly fruitful, with Reaves owning the first-quarter scoring, James taking over in the second and Don\u010di\u0107 going off on his birthday in the third quarter to make the fourth irrelevant.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the longest time, we were one of the best clutch teams in the NBA \u2014 our record was really good,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cYou\u2019re gonna lose a couple. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
The defense has held up with the trio together on the floor, only allowing only 109.6 points per 100 possessions. Some of that can be attributed to a microscopic opponent free-throw attempt rate that comes with starting first and third quarters with that group, as well as bad opponent 3-point shooting. But Don\u010di\u0107, James, and Reaves have all been solid rebounders as well, and Redick has been pleased with the zone defenses that the Lakers have used more liberally as the season has gone on.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we started playing zone, our defense has significantly improved,\u201d Redick said. \u201cThe world ended, apparently, and we\u2019re still a top-10 offense, you know, top-15 defense. Which kind of was our goal coming out of All-Star break. So, yeah, we\u2019re just going to keep pushing till we have it. There\u2019s no other choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will be interesting to see how the postseason changes things. The star trio\u2019s success has come against teams that don\u2019t have much chance to compete during the regular season. But in the playoffs, talent is more formidable and defenses are more sound.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are hard to game plan for,\u201d Kings coach Doug Christie said after facing the Don\u010di\u0107-James-Reaves lineup for the first time on Sunday. \u201cLeBron in transition \u2014 the game slows down in the playoffs, so that\u2019s going to be a little different. But his greatness is going to be his greatness. Luka, I just know that the whistle is a little bit different sometimes in the playoffs, because there\u2019s a level of physicality and aggressiveness.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeBron and Luka make passes that there\u2019s only a few people in the NBA can make. On time, on target, reading the defense, looking away and the pass hits the guy in his hands. That\u2019s high level. They will be difficult to deal with, no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Time has allowed the Lakers to figure out some things. They know not to have Deandre Ayton and Rui Hachimura on the floor with the star trio: That five-man group has been outscored by 47 points this season and got torched again at the end of the Magic game. On the flip side, there\u2019s a good chance that Smart and Jaxson Hayes get more opportunities with Don\u010di\u0107, James, and Reaves after how strongly the Lakers finished on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Overall, the Lakers have just over a quarter of the season left to see what works around Don\u010di\u0107, James and Reaves. They\u2019re healthy now, which was the biggest impediment during James\u2019 delayed start to the season, Reaves\u2019 recurring calf injuries and Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s hamstring injury going into the All-Star break. The record is in a good place. There are worse spots for the Lakers to be in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve obviously won three in a row,\u201d Don\u010di\u0107 said. \u201cWe\u2019re playing together, since All-Star break, everybody. Obviously, the chemistry is going to keep building every day, every game we play.\u201d\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Don\u010di\u0107 has been wary of lineup-related questions, particularly his fit with LeBron James, and Austin Reaves, the team\u2019s second-leading scorer. Unfortunately for him, he got another question on the subject Tuesday night after the Lakers beat the New Orleans Pelicans 110-101 at home. \u201cYou guys going to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Lakers-big-3-of-LeBron-Luka-and-Austin-Reaves-have.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23099,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23097\/revisions\/23099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}