LOS ANGELES — Lakers coach JJ Redick, emulating Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd, knew that his team’s best defense was going to stem from “good offense” against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
And Redick got more than just “good offense” from his team on Friday night – he got a great offense led by a historic performance from Luka Doncic in the Lakers’ first win of the season.
Doncic scored 49 points in the Lakers’ 128-110 victory over the Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena, becoming the first player in franchise history and the fourth in NBA history to open a season with back-to-back 40-point games after scoring 43 in Tuesday’s season-opening loss to the Golden State Warriors.
“He’s obviously one of the best players in the league,” fellow Lakers guard Austin Reaves said of Doncic. “He’s been that since he got in the league. So the stuff that he does isn’t a surprise to anybody. It’s crazy, because you look at the numbers that he’s putting up, but he does it within a way that everybody’s involved.”
Doncic shot 14 for 23 from the field, including 5 for 12 from 3-point range, and 16 for 19 on free throws, to go along with 11 rebounds and eight assists.
“It’s just so easy for him, basketball is,” forward Rui Hachimura said. “That’s the beauty of playing with him.”
Doncic was serenaded by “M-V-P” chants throughout the game after scoring 23 points in the opening quarter – though the Lakers still trailed 40-36 – tying late franchise legend Kobe Bryant and Kyle Kuzma for the most points in a first quarter by a Lakers player since the 1996-97 season.
“He managed the game really well,” Redick said of Doncic. “By that, I mean, we needed him, we had to have him scoring early. They were making shots. We made some defensive mistakes. Talked about it in a timeout. And we started getting stops. They went to some blitzes, double teams. [Doncic] became a willing passer. You get 11 rebounds out of your point guard. It’s just awesome. Just a complete game from him.”
Doncic joined Anthony Davis (2016-17), Michael Jordan (1986-87) and Wilt Chamberlain (1961-62 and 1962-63) as the only players in league history to score at least 40 points in consecutive games to open a season.
The 26-year-old Slovenian star’s 92 combined points in the season’s first two games are a franchise record, besting the 81 that late franchise icon Jerry West scored in the first two games of the 1969-70 season, and the fourth-most in league history behind Chamberlain (106 – 1962-63; 105 – 1961-62) and Davis (95 – 2016-17).
Doncic’s scoring total on Friday was the most since the Lakers acquired him from the Mavericks in early February.
“It’s all great,” Doncic said. “I wish we won the first game, but obviously it’s a good comeback. Minnesota is a great team. We had to do a lot to win. But myself, I feel great. I want to win every game.”
After his final 3-pointer, which put him at 45 points and gave the Lakers a 117-98 lead with 8:07 remaining in the game, Doncic did a Steph Curry-esque shoulder shimmy before the Timberwolves called timeout.
“I don’t know what to do at those moments,” Doncic said. “I said that before. I just do some stupid thing and I don’t know what to do. That just came out. It’s got to be better. I got to work on it.”
But unlike Tuesday, when Doncic and Reaves carried the offense, the Lakers’ offense hummed in a way that they showed flashes of during the preseason but had yet to sustain for prolonged stretches.
Reaves not only added 25 points (9-for-15 shooting), 11 assists and seven rebounds, but Hachimura bounced back from a quiet offensive performance on Tuesday.
Hachimura finished with 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting, throwing down multiple alley-oops during a third quarter the Laker won 40-31.
Deandre Ayton scored 15 points (7-of-11 shooting) and grabbed eight rebounds for a Lakers team that shot 59.2% from the field (45 for 76) and 41.4% from behind the arc (12 for 29).
“[Doncic] gets a lot of attention, we can do a lot of stuff,” Hachimura said. “That fourth quarter, the second half they had to double-team, triple-team. So it makes it so easy for us. I was wide open so many times. This is only the second game of the season, but we have to keep building this chemistry and get through this whole season.”
The Lakers turned around their woes coming out of halftime after struggling in the third all of last season, during the preseason and against the Warriors.
“Basically, ‘don’t have a [expletive] third quarter’,” Reaves said of Redick’s message to the team during halftime. “He came in here, we had a couple slides on what we did well, what we didn’t do well and talked for a second and then he was like, ‘go, get ready.’ This has been our Achilles heel over the last couple years, and we got to figure out a way to not let that happen. And [Friday] was was much, much better.”
Redick said: “There were no basketball adjustments. It was a halftime routine adjustment. That’s all. [Minnesota] called the first timeout. I think for the first time in Lakers history, the other team called the first timeout in the third quarter. Had a nice ‘alright, alright’ with the group. ‘Alright group. We did it.’ Maybe that’s the blueprint, just the coaches, just changing the routine bit.”
Even after taking a game-high 25-point lead following a Doncic and-1 dunk that put him at 48 points after making his free throw, Redick kept Doncic in the game with the hopes of Doncic recording a 50-point game that didn’t come to fruition. Doncic split a pair of free throws with 3:05 remaining and was subbed out seconds later.
“I’m trying to get the guy 50 and yeah, I’d already given him three chances,” Redick said. “I gave a fourth chance. He gets fouled and then he blows that too. He was awesome.”
Anthony Edwards had 31 points and five assists and Julius Randle had 26 points, nine rebounds and five assists for Minnesota in a rematch of last season’s first-round playoff series won in five games by the Wolves.
“I don’t really think about that first series just because [they] are [the] second game,” Doncic said. “We’re gonna meet them two more times. So it’s gonna be a war every time we play them.”
The Lakers next head to Sacramento to play the Kings on Sunday, the first night of a back-to-back set, before hosting Portland on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.