On a Friday night game at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Los Angeles Lakers got their first win of the season behind an amazing effort by Luka Dončić, who scored a team-leading 49 points in breaking the all-time franchise mark for most points scored through the first two games of a regular season by an individual player. Other contributors such as Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and DeAndre Ayton helped propel the Purple & Gold to a good victory over the Wolves, who eliminated them in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs last season. Minnesota got off to a hot start in scoring 40 points in the first quarter, but the Lakers would push ahead near the end of the first half in having Doncic score 23 points in the first quarter and 32 in the entire half. Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels were relentless early on, but the Wolves struggled with keeping up in missing free throws and 3-pointers along with committing fouls that sent the Lakers to the line. Clutch three-point shooting by Doncic and others was key to the Los Angeles win as well.

The third quarter was where the Lakers really took control with a 40-point quarter that pushed them over triple digits and some epic alley-oops by Luka to Rui. A double-digit lead heading into the fourth quarter became even bigger as Doncic passed his scoring total from the first game and also surpassed Jerry West from the beginning of the 1969-70 season for the most points in the first two games of the regular season in franchise history. Luka even tried to use his legs to have a rare dunk late in the game, as a near slam occurred on an and-one layup. Doncic nearly had a triple double, with him having 10 rebounds and eight assists. And if not for a couple of missed free throws, Luka would have had a fifty-piece in the scoring department. But his efforts were just enough along with the 20-plus point contributions from Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura. Reaves had 25 points with 11 assists and 7 rebounds along with a couple of three-pointers in shooting 9-15 from the floor. Hachimura had 23 points and shot 10 of 13 along with a couple of epic slam dunks. An unsung hero for the Purple & Gold was center DeAndre Ayton, who had a more efficient performance in having 15 points and eight rebounds while defending well against Rudy Gobert, who only had two points for the night. The leading scorer for Minnesota was Edwards with 31 points with four made three-pointers. Julius Randle had 26 points along with 9 rebounds and 6 assists along with four made threes of his own.

The Lakers made 59% of their shots from the floor along with making 12 three pointers and only attempting 29 shots behind the arc. Instead of a bombs away strategy, J.J Redick focused more on having the players on the floor penetrate more into the paint and taking advantage of Luka’s more agile strength with his more healthy body condition. Ball movement was important as well with 26 assists to go with 38 rebounds on the board. The only area where the team struggled in was giving up offensive rebounds to the Wolves and those boards leading to second-chance points that kept Minnesota in the game for a while. But the Wolves did themselves no favors by shooting bad from three-point land, having a 13-38 total from there. Both teams were even in turnovers and the Lakers had a slight edge in points in the paint. An impressive 128-110 win has the Purple & Gold in the win column as they won without LeBron James, who is still out with a sciatica issue. Both of these teams will not have to wait long to face each other again as they will play each other in a Wednesday night primetime game at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis, Minn. Before that, the Lakers will play a back-to-back against the Sacramento Kings on the road and the Chauncey Billups-lacking Portland Trail Blazers at home. In this game, Luka Magic showed why he is the real deal as he was serenaded by “MVP” chants by the home crowd with a combined 92 points to start out the season. Let’s see what he can do for an encore in the next few games as the Lakers had a very good debut on Amazon Prime Video.