FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

After a historic 15–2 run in March, the Lakers’ best in more than 25 years, this team reached a real high. It was a month defined by Luka Dončić doing unprecedented things, breaking scoring records and earning another Player of the Month. And with how up-and-down this season has been, the crash almost felt inevitable…it was always going to be hard.

Iztok Franko
@iztok_franko

But I was told Luka was only good for 3 weeks…won his second Player of the Month award (only Luka and Cade have more than one).
And averaged 35/9/8, with Lakers opening the season 15-4 in Oct/Nov when the first award was given.

NBA @NBA
The @Kia NBA Players of the Month for March!

West: Luka Dončić (@Lakers)
East: Jalen Johnson (@ATLHawks)
12:21 PM · Apr 2, 2026 · 17K Views
15 Replies · 76 Reposts · 569 Likes

First, the Lakers got blown off the floor in OKC in express fashion, looking like the helpless team we saw earlier in the season.

Then, to make it much worse, Luka Dončić suffered another injury to his left hamstring, the same one that caused him to miss several games in February.

Today’s notes:

What Luka’s injury could mean for the playoffs (VIDEO)

What Luka’s injury means for award eligibility

First-round knockout (VIDEO)

Stress-test feedback loop

The power of infrastructure

1-What Luka’s injury could mean for the playoffs (VIDEO)

Let’s start from the end, or from the worst part. Dončić, who had been grabbing at his left hamstring as early as the second quarter, suffered the injury on a drive against Jalen Williams with 7:41 left in the third. And the optics were not good. At all.

It was a non-contact injury on a deceleration move, when the strain on the hamstring is at its highest. Dončić grabbed for it immediately, then stayed down for a moment before slowly walking off the court, head buried in his jersey in frustration.

Obviously, it’s impossible to speculate about the severity until the MRI later today.

Dave McMenamin
@mcten

Luka Doncic will undergo an MRI on Friday to determine the extent of his left hamstring injury, a source familiar with Doncic’s situation told ESPN

8:35 PM · Apr 2, 2026 · 376K Views
137 Replies · 379 Reposts · 3.02K Likes

But according to NBA injury expert and friend of this substack, Jeff Stotts, even an average hamstring strain this season could keep Dončić out through the start of the playoffs.

Jeff Stotts
@InStreetClothes

Still a lot of details to sort through re: Doncic’s hamstring injury but there’s a lot on the line. This season the average time lost for nondescript hamstring strains in the NBA has been ~22 days (~9 games). That’s higher than the historical averages of 12.1 days (~5 games).

8:44 PM · Apr 2, 2026 · 132K Views
1 Reply · 12 Reposts · 92 Likes

Again, hopefully the Lakers and Dončić get good news today, and he can recover in time for the playoffs, which start in 15 days. However, for any real success, the Lakers need Luka in his March MVP form, not limited or working his way back from a recurring injury. So, a really tough break after such a positive and optimistic stretch.

2-What Luka’s injury means for award eligibility

Another brutal twist is that this was Dončić’s 64th game of the season, one short of the 65-game threshold for NBA awards.

Tim Bontemps
@TimBontemps

It obviously is of far lesser concern than his playoff availability, but if Luka Doncic is out for the final 10 days of the regular season, he won’t be eligible for end-of-season awards, after Anthony Edwards was eliminated from eligibility by missing Minnesota’s game tonight.

8:15 PM · Apr 2, 2026 · 202K Views
52 Replies · 89 Reposts · 992 Likes

The Lakers have only five games and nine days left, with their final one on April 12 at home against the Jazz, for Dončić to potentially return and reach the required number.

What is clear now is that, after last night’s performance, Dončić’s late MVP push, if it was realistic in the first place, has come to an end. Missing out on a First Team All-NBA selection for the second straight season because of injury would be a tough blow, especially after such an outstanding year. If that happens, Dončić would join Cade Cunningham and Anthony Edwards as other stellar guards rendered ineligible due to injury setbacks.

NBA on ESPN
@ESPNNBA

Anthony Edwards is out for Thursday’s game against the Pistons with right knee pain and an illness.

The Timberwolves star is now ineligible for end of season NBA awards, including All-NBA and MVP.

3:28 PM · Apr 2, 2026 · 139K Views
108 Replies · 152 Reposts · 1.62K Likes

3-First-round knockout (VIDEO)

Now, let’s talk about the game. If I weren’t a bit masochistic, I could just link back to my notes from the first game in November. This was a carbon copy. Only worse.

The Lakers opened the game with a couple of sloppy passes, the one thing you just can’t afford against a ball-hawking team like the Thunder, and it was all it took for the dam to break. Inspired by those easy turnovers, the Thunder ramped up their aggressiveness, and the Lakers folded.

The Lakers had eight first-quarter turnovers, three of them coming off reckless passes by Austin Reaves, and another three on attempts by Dončić and LeBron James to feed Deandre Ayton, with the big man either not playing with enough force to protect the ball or simply not able to secure the pass.

Mix in the Thunder’s exceptional shotmaking, as they made seven of their first 10 three-point attempts, including Lu Dort hitting his first four, and the game was effectively over with a 23-point deficit after the first quarter.

4-Stress-test feedback loop

This was a real stress test for the improved Lakers, going up against the best team and a historically disruptive defense. Unfortunately, after a stretch of inspiring performances in March, the cracks from earlier in the season showed up again.

The Lakers looked like the finesse, athletically challenged team, unable to handle the pressure OKC applied on every possession, every dribble, every touch, every pass.

It’s easy to overreact after a beating like this, but with another shot at the Thunder coming Tuesday, there’s no need to panic just yet.

However, this game added to patterns we’ve seen in high-profile losses all season. Marcus Smart is the only player on the roster who brings that physicality and edge, while the Thunder have several younger versions of him flying around. Without him, the Lakers have no one to throw at a player like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to make his life even a bit more difficult. Jake LaRavia tried and had a good start, but as the game progressed, it became clear he is out of his depth in the primary point-of-attack defender role. The difference in physicality between Deandre Ayton and Isaiah Hartenstein, who dominated the offensive glass, showed once again that every playoff game will be a roll of the dice when it comes to which version of Ayton shows up. Rui Hachimura and Luke Kennard are the epitome of that finesse label, and in today’s fast-paced, aggressive NBA, it’s hard to see them surviving a physical seven-game playoff series.

Lastly, Bronny James getting real rotation minutes over Jarred Vanderbilt was another reminder of how little trust JJ Redick has in Vando, and how talent-deprived the Lakers bench is compared to OKC’s second unit, which was missing Alex Caruso but still rolled out Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell, Isaiah Joe, Jared McCain, Aaron Wiggins, and Jaylin Williams.

5-The power of infrastructure

I don’t want this to sound like an excuse for Dončić, because even before the injury he had a rough game. The Thunder consistently showed two defenders or sent doubles, forcing him into a passer and getting the ball out of his hands. But their rotations out of those doubles are so quick that the usual advantage basketball the Lakers thrive on doesn’t really feel like an advantage. Dončić’s shotmaking wasn’t there, and the Thunder’s on-ball pressure bothered him, leading to three turnovers off lost handles. Definitely not the kind of performance he needed in his head-to-head MVP battle against Gilgeous-Alexander.

However, watching the Lakers get dismantled in the first quarter, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the best showcase of the power of infrastructure, the under-discussed aspect of the MVP race I wrote about earlier this week.

NBA MVP Race: The Undervalued Power of Infrastructure
Iztok Franko
·
Mar 30
NBA MVP Race: The Undervalued Power of Infrastructure

The NBA season is coming to an end, and we’ve got one of the tightest MVP races in recent years.

Read full story

Both Dončić and Gilgeous-Alexander started cold, with SGA missing five of his first six shots, yet OKC kept rolling and crushing the Lakers regardless.

The gap in talent and depth is only part of the infrastructure. The continuity and experience built over several seasons and two deep playoff runs, the system, the connectivity, the clear identity, those are the things that make the Thunder so special.

The Lakers’ infrastructure, with several new, temporary pieces, is far more fragile. They look great when shots are falling, but it gets tested quickly at the first sign of adversity. Then the cracks show…like a lack of trust in Ayton to seal, catch, and finish inside, or botched rotations coupled with a lack of second and third effort on defense. Being battle-tested over many playoff series builds that trust. But this group probably won’t get that many chances.

de de litle de de, Game Over…

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

No one believes the Lakers are going to win the championship.

And no one believes Luka Doncic is the MVP.

The Lakers’ nine-game winning streak? All that proved is the Lakers will likely get past the first round of the playoffs.

Doncic’s unreal March in which he scored the second-most points in NBA history behind Michael Jordan? As he recently pointed out with disgust, he actually fell in the MVP race during that stretch.

But both the Lakers and Doncic have a chance to change people’s minds. It’s coming over the next seven days in the form of two games against the Thunder.

If the Lakers beat the reigning NBA champions, their stock will skyrocket. And if Doncic outshines the reigning MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he could win the MVP Award.

The Lakers are coming off a commanding win over the Cavaliers on Tuesday in which they led by as much as 27 points. They’ve won 16 of their last 18 games, including beating multiple contenders in the Rockets (twice), Nuggets, Knicks and Timberwolves.

But they haven’t convinced anyone they’re the real deal.

Yeah, they’re good. But not good enough to get past the Thunder and Spurs.

It’s a fair assumption considering the last time they played the Thunder and their swarming defense in January, they looked like they had barely survived a war.

Seriously, Austin Reaves was slumped in his chair, too exhausted to sit upright. And LeBron James’ voice was hoarse. (Doncic missed that game, to be fair, but it was still brutal.)

But the thing is the Lakers are a completely different team now.

Doncic, Reaves and James went from being a liability on the court into one of the best trios in the league. The role players are starring in their duties. Things turned around for the Lakers beginning in late February.

What changed?

“I think it was a confluence of things starting with health,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said, pointing to the fact that the Big 3 had only played 11 games together before the All-Star break. “I think it’s much easier when you have a consistent stretch of health to — not even buy in — but settle into roles and minutes and rotations. We never found that throughout the season. Another big part of that was…guys really just embracing things.”

After James missed a three-game stretch at the top of March against the Pacers, Knicks and Timberwolves in which the Lakers were thriving behind Doncic and Reaves, he agreed to be the team’s third option. Reaves has learned to be aggressive while sharing the court with James and Doncic. And Doncic has been playing out of his mind.

But still, no one really believes in the Lakers.

Not yet.

Same with Doncic.

Both Doncic and his fans have been outraged that the bar for the MVP Award seems to change whenever his name is involved. So what he’s an offensive savant who’s leading the league in scoring (33.8 points) is third in assists (8.3) and sixth in steals (1.7)? He’s mediocre on the defensive end.

Sure, that didn’t seem to matter when guys like James Harden or Steph Curry won the award. But in this MVP race, with two-way stars Gilgeous-Alexander and Victor Wembanyama, the goalpost has shifted.

That’s being held against Doncic, who scored 40-plus points for the third straight game on Tuesday and has had a month in which he had 60-point and 51-point performances while helping his team climb to third in the Western Conference standings.

Wembanyama recently stated his case for why he should win the award. Gilgeous-Alexander declined to do so, saying, “I let my game do the talking,”

When Doncic was asked Tuesday if he wanted to advocate for himself, he seemed resigned to the fact that it would be an act of futility. He literally scoffed when the reporter mentioned he was “getting a lot of MVP momentum.”

“I mean, I never did that,” Doncic said. “I’m not the one voting, so, you know, but I think I’ve been playing pretty good. We’ve been winning. So that’s it. That’s all I gotta say.”

Well, Doncic, here’s your chance to change voters’ minds.

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

It takes nearly a quarter-mile walk from the curb to the bus inside Terminal 4 at Los Angeles International Airport — a walk that includes a trip up two flights of stairs, down two escalators, through the mosaic-walled hallway that Pam Grier strutted through in “Jackie Brown,” and back up again. Then, it’s a 10-minute shuttle ride alongside the runway, weaving past planes and service vehicles, before arriving at the remote American Airlines terminal for one of the only direct flights.

That’s how you get to Oklahoma City from Los Angeles. The Lakers? That’s a different story. They were good, then bad. They were faux-contenders, and they now have a real chance to play deep into the playoffs.

The Lakers arrive in Oklahoma as the league’s hottest team — save for the one they are playing Thursday night. They bring the NBA’s best player — save for the reigning MVP who is still the heavy-betting favorite. They arrive with a clear winning style of play — only to test it against a Thunder team that Lakers coach JJ Redick says has been honing it for five years.

To a casual observer, the Lakers might look like they’ve been good for five weeks. But Thursday’s game against the NBA’s defending champions and current best team in the league is a tremendous opportunity for the Lakers to test their emerging beliefs that they might just have a championship team on their hands as well.

It really shouldn’t be surprising — the Lakers opened the season with three goals explicitly written out: championship habits, championship communication and championship shape.

After they dominated the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 127-113 win on Tuesday that wasn’t as close as the score would suggest, veteran Maxi Kleber was one of the last players in the Lakers’ home locker room after a postgame workout. He didn’t play against Cleveland, but he’s watched as the Lakers won 15 of 17 games, and a group return to the form it was at during its 15-4 start.

“We kind of established this from the start, you know?” he told The Athletic.

While the Lakers’ “championship” recipe could’ve easily been dismissed as the kind of coach-speak that lives on T-shirts and locker room walls, the messaging seeped into Kleber and Lakers’ psyche.

“A lot of times, like, when you see it, obviously, you can look at it and say ‘It’s bulls—,’ Kleber said. “But at the end of the day, it still is a daily reminder. You know, you look at the board, you see it … sometimes, maybe it gets overemphasized and you make a joke about it. But it’s relevant in your head. I think that’s important.”

Right now, it’s a Lakers team that’s playing well and playing for one another.

After Jake LaRavia threw down a one-handed dunk over Jarrett Allen, Deandre Ayton greeted him on the bench with a bear hug. When Luka Dončić scored his 600th point of March on a two-handed dunk of all ways, the LeBron James and the Lakers’ bench erupted. Dončić celebrated with two hands hoisted into the air and a gigantic smile.

“There are a million different forms of leadership, and every guy has their own responsibility to lead in whatever way they can. And, whether it’s Smart defensively, LeBron making hustle plays, Jake with his physicality. That’s leadership,” Redick said. “… Our team right now is the reason that we’re winning. Our team – because each guy has contributed to winning.”

Redick, when asked about the things that have changed about his team, proceeded to list every player that’s been in the regular rotation. Yes, the Lakers got healthy. Yes, the Lakers established clear hierarchy and roles. And yes, the Lakers are getting MVP performances from their best player.

But not one thing is the reason why the Lakers have hit this level. It’s been all of them.

“I think it was a confluence of things,” Redick said.

If there’s a team equipped to puncture the Lakers’ confidence, though, it’s the Thunder. In March, the Lakers went 15-2. The Thunder went 14-1.

“Very exciting,” Austin Reaves said of the meeting. “Obviously, they’re defending champs. Playing at a high level, obviously, one of the best teams in the league, if not the best team. And we have an opportunity to go into OKC and battle them.”

Dončić closed the month with 37.5 points per game on 49.2 percent shooting from the field with 8.0 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 2.3 steals. Reaves led the league with minutes over the month, a testament to his toughness as he deals with a handful of minor injuries. And James has become an efficiency machine, hitting 56.2 percent of his shots to go with 6.9 rebounds and 7.0 assists.

“We just figure out how to play together,” Dončić said. “I think our ceiling is still higher than what we’re doing now, but I think we all know basketball, a lot of basketball, so it’s just very natural.”

In some ways, it feels like the Lakers have reached their destination — a team that’s playing selfless, that’s reveling in each other’s successes and covering for their failures. But early April isn’t June. And the Thunder have already shown what it takes to get there.

For now, the Lakers are content enough knowing that they’re merely on their way.