LOS ANGELES — For the first time in a couple of weeks, the Lakers started their preferred first unit in Thursday’s Christmas Day matchup against the Houston Rockets.
With Luka Doncic and Rui Hachimura back in the lineup after being sidelined because of a lower left leg contusion and right groin injury management, respectively, the Lakers were as close to fully healthy as they’ve been since their NBA Cup quarterfinal loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Dec. 10.
Doncic and Hachimura started alongside Austin Reaves, LeBron James and Deandre Ayton on Thursday at Crypto.com Arena.
Reaves moved back into the first unit after coming off the bench in his return from a minor calf injury in Tuesday’s road loss to the Phoenix Suns.
“In a perfect world, it gives you just sort of a normal flow in terms of your offensive optionality,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said of the starting lineup. “We still got to monitor AR (Reaves) a little bit with some of his minutes and workload. It’s not that he’s like on a minutes restriction, but we still got to be smart with him because of the nature of his injury versus Rui and Luka’s.”
The Lakers have started the Doncic-Reaves-James-Hachimura-Ayton lineup only seven times, with James missing the first 14 games of the season because of sciatica, and every starter missing multiple games since James’ season debut in the Nov. 18 home win against the Utah Jazz.
The Lakers were still without two rotation players in reserve big man Jaxson Hayes (left ankle soreness) and veteran guard Gabe Vincent (lumbar back strain).
Redick feels the inconsistent player availability has impacted the team’s ability to hone in its defensive identity.
The Lakers entered Saturday with the No. 28 defensive rating (third worst) across the league since Nov. 23.
“It’s hard to judge,” Redick said. “You asked the other night about that being a factor in trying to execute what your schemes are defensively and not having that continuity. That’s part of. It’s the modern NBA where there’s injuries and then there’s not a ton of time to practice. When you have continuity, you can kind of capture what you’re trying to do and you feel comfortable and good about it.
“The thought I had was this stretch has been like eerily reminiscent of last March for us, where I thought we were playing really good basketball – we still were getting better – but then injuries, then we are playing different lineups. Guys were playing on two-ways a lot and you just don’t seem to have that kind of consistency with what we’re trying to do.”
FINNEY-SMITH BACK
Former Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith made his Rockets debut Thursday after missing Houston’s first 27 games while recovering from offseason ankle surgery.
Finney-Smith, 32, arrived in Los Angeles via trade from the Brooklyn Nets in December 2024.
He averaged 7.9 points (44.2% shooting overall; 39.8% from 3-point range), 3.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 28.8 minutes (43 games) with the Lakers, with his impact often not fully being captured by a box score.
The Lakers were 18-13 before trading for Finney-Smith and went 29-14 in the 43 regular-season games in which he played.
Finney-Smith signed a four-year, $53 million contract with the Rockets in free agency after declining his $15.4 million player option for 2025-26.
“Everybody knows how fondly we feel about Doe,” Redick said. “A number of us, whether it was me being his teammate or [assistant coach] Greg [St. Jean] coaching him prior in Dallas, we knew what we were getting with him.
“And he didn’t disappoint in terms of just being a warrior every single night and doing whatever is required to help win. He’s a player who drives winning without having to take 15 shots or have the ball in his hands.”