FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

This would be one of the worst portions of the regular season for James to potentially miss, with the Lakers playing the No. 2 Denver Nuggets twice over the next 10 days. The Lakers finish their road trip in Brooklyn on Monday, and then in Milwaukee on Thursday and Denver on Friday. That back-to-back kicks off an eight-day stretch in which they play three consecutive back-to-backs: at Milwaukee/at Denver, vs. Phoenix/vs. San Antonio, and vs. Denver/vs. Milwaukee.

As things stand, the Lakers are a half-game back in the win column behind the No. 2 Nuggets (41-22), two games up in the loss column on the No. 4 Memphis Grizzlies (39-24), three in the loss column on the No. 5 Houston Rockets (39-25) and six in the loss column of the No. 6 Warriors (36-28).

How can the Lakers potentially survive without James?

“I think we just have to continue to play hard and play defense,” Redick said.

Redick is not wrong. The Lakers, the league’s best defense since Jan. 15, will have to rely more on that end of the floor to muck up games and generate transition offense.

There is no one-for-one James replacement. He’s appeared in 58 of the Lakers’ 62 games and been their throughline during this 20-5 stretch that has included portions without Anthony Davis or Dončić. James just won Player of the Month for February and has been playing at a backend-of-the-ballot MVP level and first-team All-NBA level. For the season, he’s averaging 25.1 points on 51.8 percent shooting (39.1 percent from 3) to go along with 8.5 assists and 8.1 rebounds.

With Dončić on the floor and James off the floor, the Lakers have outscored opponents by 21.6 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass. In those lineups, the Lakers are averaging 122.9 points per 100 possessions (92nd percentile offensively) and allowing just 101.4 points per 100 possessions defensively (99th percentile defensively). It’s a small sample size — only 216 possessions — but it at least offers some encouragement that the Lakers can figure out a way to continue winning without James.

Of note, when removing Hachimura from those lineups — because he’ll miss at least several more games — those Dončić-led lineups drop to plus-11.0 points per possessions (on 146 possessions). Remove Hayes and the lineups improve to plus-17.1 points per 100 possessions (117 possessions).

“We’ve had many situations where a player deals with some type of injury or a trade or whatever it is, and we’ve done a really good job of bouncing back,” Austin Reaves said. “And I don’t expect anything else. It’s a next-man-up mentality. Not one person’s gonna do what LeBron does for us. But you can do it as a collective. And … hopefully, he gets back out on the court soon.”

James will continue traveling with the team on its four-game trip, though he noted, “We’ll see what happens in the next few days and then go from there.”

With or without James, the Lakers’ objective is clear: Continue winning as many games as possible and try to enter the playoffs as healthy as they can.

“We can compete versus anyone in this league,” James said. “So, we’ll be fine. We got to continue to build our habits. … We made an acquisition late in the season, and we’re still trying to build. And we want to get full. That’s the No. 1 objective for us: How we can get full and get all our guys together and see exactly what we look like.”