124-114 in Atlanta. No 40-piece. No Reaves. No problem.

124-114 in Atlanta. No 40-piece. No Reaves. No problem.

Lakers 124, Hawks 114 — State Farm Arena, Atlanta. Lakers 10-2, six straight wins, best start since the 2019-20 title season.

The 40-point streak is over. The winning streak is not. Luka came back, Reaves sat out sick, and the Lakers still left Atlanta with a 10-point win on the second night of a back-to-back. That's the story. Everything else is just how they got there.

How it went down

Atlanta jumped out 15-7 early and the building was loud. Then the Lakers answered with a 23-5 run, took a 41-27 lead, and never trailed again. Luka hit a free throw with two minutes left in the first to put LA ahead for good, 23-22, and from there it was the Lakers' game to lose.

They almost gave it back. The Hawks shot 12-for-24 in the third and kept chipping, and with 3:30 left a Dyson Daniels bucket cut it to 115-111. Then the Lakers closed with a 6-0 burst, Luka with a driving layup and an assist in the middle of it, and a 9-3 run to the buzzer. Final: 124-114.

Quarter by quarter: 31-22, 37-35, 27-33, 29-24.

Luka's night: 32, and he didn't need 40

Luka Doncic is back. One game off for the back, and he came back with 32 points, 8 rebounds, 10 assists, 5 steals and 2 blocks in 39 minutes. Eleven of 22 from the field, 7-for-7 from the line.

Eight of those assists came in the first half. Eighteen of the 32 came after halftime, right when Atlanta was making its run.

The 40-point streak ends at four games. Fine. He still leads the league at 39.3 a night, and this was the more impressive version of the heater: he read the game instead of hunting it. Before the game, JJ Redick said it plainly:

"To me, he is first a competitor. You see it in everything he does throughout his daily life and his existence. He just loves competing. I think when he gets on a basketball court, the first priority is to try to win. And he does a great job figuring out on a night to night basis what levers to pull. It's not just hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt [to score]. He reads the game."

After the game, Redick said the same thing a different way:

"Luka, again, just orchestrating. He was out there without a secondary ball handler, so he had to be on the ball a lot and that was taxing. I thought he handled it well."

The history-book line: Luka is now one of only 10 players in NBA history with multiple games of at least 30 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 5 steals. And the first Laker ever with multiple games of 30 points, 5 assists, 5 steals and 2 blocks.

The winning streak is not.

The others stepped up, and that's the real story

No Reaves. No Grimes. Second night of a back-to-back. Somebody had to eat those shots, and three guys did.

Sandro Mamukelashvili had his best game as a Laker: a season-high 23 points off the bench, 7-for-13, 5-for-8 from three, 8 rebounds, game-high plus-20. Redick:

"Sandro, his best game as a Laker and whatever, he had 23 points. That was awesome. Made some big-time plays. I thought the two defensive rebounds he got there in the last few minutes were as big as any play he made all night."

Walker Kessler went 21 and 10, and then said the quiet part out loud after the game:

"He's the best player in the league."

That's Kessler on Luka. He's said it before, in different words, and he keeps saying it because it keeps being true.

Collin Sexton gave them 18 points and 6 assists off the bench, most of it in the first half when the Lakers needed a second ball handler. Redick:

"The last two games have been a great example of next guy up. And I've talked about this before; there's a compounding effect to having the guys out of the lineup. Do you have enough ball-handling on the floor, enough rebounding on the floor, or enough shooting on the floor? You lose AR, you lose Q, and now you're down a couple of guys, so I thought Collin did a really nice job of attacking the paint, scoring, giving us some juice, especially in the first half."

Sexton also picked up a technical for talking to himself. Redick, on that one:

"Well, he got a technical for talking to himself; I don't understand that one."

The Reaves context

Austin Reaves dropped 43 on Sunday in Detroit while he was already sick. He'd been feeling ill since the team got to Detroit on Saturday. He played through it, carried the win, and then the illness won the next day: out tonight in Atlanta.

Luka, on the back-to-back and trading big nights with Reaves: everybody should be praised. The whole team responded both nights, and that helps both of them. He's right. Sunday was Reaves. Tonight was everybody else. That's how a 10-2 team works.

The moment of the night

Rookie Cameron Carr got his first real rotation minutes, and in the first quarter Luka fed him off a loose ball for a fastbreak dunk. First NBA bucket. After the buzzer, Luka tracked down a referee to get the game ball for him. Luka:

"Obviously, you always want to remember your first bucket and get that ball. You want to remember it. So, it was kind of important for me to grab it."

Superstar and big brother in the same night.

Lakers numbers

• Luka Doncic: 32 PTS, 8 REB, 10 AST, 5 STL, 2 BLK, 11/22 FG, 7/7 FT

• Walker Kessler: 21 PTS, 10 REB

• Sandro Mamukelashvili: 23 PTS, 8 REB, 5/8 3PT, +20

• Collin Sexton: 18 PTS, 6 AST

• Lakers: 10-2, first team in the league to 10 wins, six straight

Hawks numbers

• CJ McCollum: 21 PTS off the bench

• Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 20 PTS

• Dyson Daniels: 10 PTS, 8 AST, 4 STL, and the primary defender on Luka all night

• Hawks: 7-5, four-game win streak snapped

Notes

• Deja Vu Tracker: the 40-piece streak ends at four, and that's fine, because this was the night the tracker is really about. Kobe's 06-07 script said the star carries and the role players decide it. Tonight Luka was 32 of the Lakers' 124, about a quarter of the offense, and Mamu, Kessler and Sexton combined for 62. The star carried. The role players decided it. Tracker lives.

• Best start since the bubble: 10-2 is the Lakers' best start since 2019-20, the year they won their 17th title. Nobody's saying that out loud yet. Everybody's thinking it.

• NBA Cup: this one counted as an NBA Cup game.

• Next up: at Milwaukee, Wednesday night, 7 PM CT, Fiserv Forum. Giannis on the road, two days' rest, and maybe a healthy Reaves back.

Six straight. No 40-piece. No Reaves. No problem.