LOS ANGELES — More than 45 minutes after the Lakers beat the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night, in a game that saw Luka Dončić score 53 points and Austin Reaves add 25, neither player wants to leave the locker room.
As Jake LaRavia answers questions in front of his locker, Dončić and Reaves are chirping at each other from opposite ends of the room, like two kids who have been separated in class.
“A.R.,” Dončić yells from one end of the room.
“Shut up,” Reaves yells back from the other.
Matisse Thybulle smiles at the two of them as he starts to walk out.
“What? No goodbye? You’re just going to leave?” Dončić says before breaking into a laugh. “Just kidding. See you in 10 hours.”
The headlines from Friday will be about Dončić’s historic start, and they should be. He has scored 361 points in his first nine games, the most since Wilt Chamberlain scored 472 in 1962-63. His 40.1 points per game ranks third in NBA history through a player’s first nine games of a season, behind only Chamberlain in 1962-63 (52.4) and 1961-62 (50.6).
But the bigger story is what is happening around him. While Dončić puts up numbers the NBA hasn’t seen in more than 60 years, the Lakers are an NBA best 8-2, their best start since the 2019-20 season ended with a championship. And this is the most connected Lakers locker room since that team.
These guys like being around each other, from the players to the coaches. As JJ Redick finished his postgame press conference, Dončić poked his head behind the curtain to listen. When Redick got up to leave, Dončić jumped out and yelled, “Boo!”
Redick didn’t flinch. Nothing Dončić does surprises him anymore.
Redick won’t say the word “championship,” and he shouldn’t. Ten games is ten games but he can see what this team can become.
“I think we’re already a really together group,” Redick said. “You don’t become a resilient team in 10 games, five games, 20 games. It takes a full season to build that resiliency, and hopefully you get to participate in the playoffs, and that’s where your resiliency really gets tested.”
That resiliency got tested Friday. The Lakers missed their first 12 3-pointers. They were 4 of 23 from deep at halftime and trailed a Portland team that had already beaten them once this season, 60-53. On most nights that’s a loss. On a lot of nights in recent Lakers history, that’s a team looking at one another and wondering whose fault it is.
Instead, at one timeout in the first half, with the Lakers down 43-30 and still looking for their first 3, a member of the analytics staff tapped Redick on the shoulder to tell him the shots the Lakers were getting were good ones. The math said keep shooting. So did Dončić.
“We talked in the locker room about belief, and we all believe in each other,” Dončić said. “If somebody’s open, you gotta take a shot no matter what. I don’t care if you go 0 for 10. If you’re open, shoot the next one.”
The Lakers came out of halftime on a 20-8 run, outscored Portland 34-15 in the third quarter and took an 87-75 lead into the fourth. They forced 24 turnovers and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds. Reaves started 0 for 7, kept shooting and finished with 25, along with a big steal late.
“When we’re not shooting the ball well, we need to do those things every night,” Reaves said.
That’s what this team looks like when Dončić isn’t the whole story. Walker Kessler had 16 points and 12 rebounds and talked about the defense like it belonged to everybody. Thybulle, Ziaire Williams and LaRavia were all over Portland’s ball handlers. Adou Thiero made his season debut and, after a shaky first couple of possessions, did everything Redick asked. And the guys who didn’t play were the loudest guys on the bench.
“I think it’s a group that cares about one another,” Reaves said. “That obviously started when Luka took all of us to Slovenia, to get to know one another. That’s our leader doing his job.”
Think about that. The best player in the world spent part of his offseason bringing his teammates home to Slovenia. Superstars don’t usually do that. Leaders do.
Then there’s the joy, which might be the most dangerous thing about this team. Dončić banked in a shot from three-quarters of the court that a couple of his teammates were celebrating before it hit the top of the backboard. Reaves, asked to put odds on Dončić making one of those, said 15%, “which is really high, so nobody get mad at me for that.”
“It’s not a surprise,” Dončić said. “I practice it a lot.”
Asked how much fun he was having, Dončić didn’t hesitate.
“Basketball was my dream,” he said. “Playing in the NBA was my dream, so I’m just playing my dream.”
Kessler, who set the screen before the deep shot, was asked whether it was too early for an MVP debate.
“I’m biased, obviously,” Kessler said. “He’s my MVP. I think it’s pretty clear right now.”
It is. But the MVP isn’t what should excite Lakers fans most. Dončić has put up monster numbers before, on teams that didn’t win much. What’s different now is the room around him: a coach who won’t let a bad shooting half become a bad night, role players who know their jobs, and a superstar who would rather talk about winning than about Wilt.
“As long as we win, I’m good,” Dončić said. “We’re just 10 games in. We got 72 left.”
That’s the right answer. But teams that win championships tend to look a lot like this in November. They play hard. They like one another and they still hang around the locker room 45 minutes after the game, giving each other a hard time.
And looking forward to seeing each other back on the court in 10 hours.
