TORONTO — Luka Doncic wasn’t with the Lakers to begin their three-game trip in Toronto on Thursday, but the team hopes to have him back soon.
The Lakers started the trip with their star guard away for “personal reasons.”
The 26-year-old star is averaging a league-best 35.3 points per game to go with 8.9 rebounds and 8.9 assists in the 16 games he has played this season.
“We hope to get him back soon,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Obviously, he’s away from the team for personal reasons. Don’t have a pinpointed day, though.”
Thursday’s game was the first night of a back-to-back set, with the Lakers traveling to Boston afterward to play the Celtics on Friday night.
Veteran guard Marcus Smart also wasn’t available against the Raptors, sitting out his fourth consecutive game because of lower back injury management. Smart’s status is considered day-to-day.
With Doncic away from the team, Gabe Vincent stepped back into the starting lineup for the fifth time in the 10 games he has played this season.
The Lakers also used an 11-man rotation in the first half against the Raptors, with two-way contract guard Nick Smith Jr., rookie forward Adou Thiero and second-year wing Dalton Knecht getting first-half minutes off the bench.
TURNOVER WOES
With the Lakers again facing a team with one of the NBA’s most disruptive defenses, the team’s ball security – or lack of it – remained a significant talking point.
The Lakers entered play on Thursday with a league-worst 16.2% turnover percentage (the percentage of plays that end in a player or team’s turnover).
They have been especially giveaway-heavy against the teams that thrive with forcing turnovers: the Lakers committed 20 in their losses to the Atlanta Hawks on Nov. 8 and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Nov. 12, both of whom rank in the top five of defensive turnover percentage.
They turned the ball over 22 times in Monday’s home loss to the Phoenix Suns, who rank No. 2 in defensive turnover percentage.
The Raptors entered Thursday at No. 5 in defensive turnover percentage.
“There have been some higher turnover games against the physical, disruptive teams like Oklahoma City or like Phoenix the other night, but they’ve been an issue all season,” Redick said. “It’s hard to pinpoint one thing, to be honest with you. At one point, we’ve done it now three times, but at one point we had to do three-on-two, two-on-one, fast-break drill. Which I don’t think I did in the NBA outside of maybe my first or second year, because we couldn’t actually convert on advantage breaks.”
The Lakers entered Thursday 15-0 in games when they committed 19 or fewer turnovers, and 0-5 when they committed 20 or more.
“The number for our cutoff point for turnovers is actually insane,” Redick said. “Normally, that number would be like, 14, 15, 16. It’s (19) an insanely high number.”