The Los Angeles Lakers will return to their home court after blowing a 25-point lead to the Golden State Warriors. Los Angeles was outscored by Golden State 99-57 after the first quarter in the 112-95 loss despite 37 points from Luka Doncic. They will try to get their rhythm back Sunday night when they welcome the Toronto Raptors, who just played back-to-back home games against the Orlando Magic. They won the first but lost the second, 121-114, despite 41 points from Scottie Barnes.
The Lakers have quickly adapted away from being a team led by Lebron James to being Luka's team. Doncic averages 36.2 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 7.6 assists in an early season MVP bid. When everything is clicking, Doncic and the Lakers have looked like a great team, but they have also looked careless with the basketball and inconsistent at times. I think Los Angeles needed a loss like they suffered against Golden State to humble and recenter the team.
There are some key areas I’m looking for the Lakers to improve tonight. First, Austin Reaves needs to take better care of the basketball. Reaves has done a great job supporting Doncic with his scoring (23.8 points per game) but he has struggled with turnovers recently. Reaves has had eight turnovers in each of his last two games and averages 4.8 for the season. These numbers appear as outliers as Reaves has never averaged more than three turnovers per game in a season. With extra attention to detail, Reaves should be able to take better care of the ball. The second area for improvement is the Lakers’ role players getting more involved. Matisse Thybulle, Sandro Mamukelshvili and Quentin Grimes all put up less than 10 points per game despite shooting 45% or better from the floor. Role players normally perform better at home, and I believe we will see these players become a bigger part of the offense to take some scoring weight off of Doncic. Tonight is a good opportunity for the Lakers to come out refocused and find a way to bounce back with a win tonight.
Raptors vs Lakers prediction: LA Lakers -2.5 is available at the time of publishing. Playable to -4.
