On Sun, Mar 8, the Los Angeles Lakers took on the New York Knicks in an important afternoon game at Crypto.com Arena. Following a close loss against the Denver Nuggets on Thur, Mar 5, the Lakers’ record versus teams with a record over .500 and specifically against playoff-positioned teams in the NBA was in a poor spot. In this rematch against the Knicks, who defeated them by a score of 112-100 five weeks beforehand, the Purple & Gold needed to show that they were more than capable of getting a win against an elite team with a record better than them. They would have to do so without LeBron James, who was out with a left elbow contusion and left foot arthritis. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, along with all the other available rotation players, would have to pick up the slack for the Lakers against New York.

The game got off to a low-scoring start, with only 15 combined points scored in the first four and a half minutes of action. But the scoring eventually picked up and a combined team effort from the Purple & Gold pushed the lead up to eight points at the end of the first quarter. The Knicks countered in the second quarter with some points from Karl-Anthony Towns, but the Lakers kept their lead high and closed out the first half with a buzzer-beating shot made by Reaves. With a 54-49 lead at the half, Los Angeles was seeking to keep their momentum going in the third quarter.

They would do exactly that as Doncic and Reaves led the charge in scoring and creating points. A 28-13 run by the Lakers over the final ten minutes of the quarter pushed the lead to around 20 points as Luka was making threes and the New York players were struggling from behind the arc. In the fourth quarter, in spite of pushing their lead to 23 points, the Purple & Gold saw their margin cut in half as the Knicks went on a 16-4 scoring run. But the lead remained at double-digits throughout the remainder of the contest as Doncic put the game on ice with some clutch shots made down the stretch. The Lakers won the game against the 41-win New York squad by a final score of 110-97.

Luka had a game-leading total of 35 points and grabbed eight rebounds for a good encore performance to his 44-point showing in a Friday night game against the Indiana Pacers. Reaves scored 25 points and in spite of taking a few hard hits to the face, had a fantastic afternoon performance. Rui Hachimura and Luke Kennard were contributing players for the Purple & Gold, with a combined 25 points between the two of them and six made three-pointers as well. Meanwhile, the Knicks saw Towns and Jalen Brunson as their main scorers, but they had a bad day shooting the ball from distance. Only eight made three-pointers out of 34 attempts and in spite of out-rebounding and forcing more turnovers against the Lakers fell a little short in downtown L.A. There were also a couple of instances where players stumbled uncontrollably into the courtside spectators, including when Marcus Smart collided with the ESPN/ABC broadcasting team’s table monitors and nearly hit late-night TV show host Bill Maher. That was definitely a wild moment in the second quarter of this game.

For the Lakers, winning a game against a big-time opponent and doing so without one of their main sources of offensive contribution was impressive. With no LeBron on the floor, the record for the Purple & Gold is simply fantastic. The team’s record with Luka and Reaves playing with James inactive is now 9-2 during this season. Perhaps that is a sign for what the team should look like in future seasons, but for now the win propels the Lakers into a tie for fifth place in the Western Conference standings with the Denver Nuggets, whom they lost to 120-113 on a Thursday night game in the Mile High City and will have a chance to clinch the season-series victory over them on Sat, Mar 14. Four of the next five games for the Purple & Gold will come against teams that they are jockeying with for a better position in the tight Western Conference standings between third and seventh place. A Tuesday night showdown against the Minnesota Timberwolves is the next game for the LakeShow and LeBron is expected to return for that contest. After a game against a sub-.500 opponent in the Chicago Bulls, the Lakers will host Denver before starting a six-game road trip with a two-game set against the Houston Rockets, who are only two losses ahead of them in the loss column. These next two weeks of inter-conference competition will be a huge opportunity for the Lakers to show where they belong in the playoff hierarchy of the West. With 39 wins, they are right where they want to be and staying at full strength will be key down the stretch of the last six weeks of this NBA season. This win over the Knicks was simply a reminder of what this team can look like when they are offensively clicking and playing efficiently on both ends of the court.