Luka Doncic scored 40 points on Wednesday night, becoming only the third Los Angeles Lakers player to record 35-plus points in six straight games, joining Kobe Bryant and Elgin Baylor. The Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings 116-103 on the road.
After the win, Lakers coach JJ Redick said this is “probably” the hottest stretch of basketball he can remember from Doncic.
“This and March,” Redick said. “The entire month of March last year.”
Last season, in 16 March games, Doncic averaged 37.5 points on 49.2% shooting overall and 39.2% from three-point range on 12.8 attempts. That surge included a 51-point game in a home win over the Chicago Bulls and 100 combined points during a two-night road run against the Houston Rockets and Miami Heat.
“He closed out Houston for the second win in three nights,” Redick said. “Then we went to Miami, got in at 4 a.m. and he had 60 [points]. That stretch was pretty magical.”
A Historic Start to the Season
The current run to open this regular season matches that stretch statistically. Doncic scored 52 points in a road win over the Utah Jazz on October 25, then followed with 41, 37, 45, 42 and 40 in his next five games.
Doncic became the first player in NBA history to record six straight games of 35-plus points, five-plus rebounds, five-plus assists and five-plus made threes.
Asked whether he had ever been hotter, Doncic was measured in his response.
“Maybe,” Doncic said. “I don’t know. I’ve had some good stretches in my career. Obviously, this could be one of the highest ones. But still some work to do.”
Early Fireworks Against the Kings
Doncic has been starting fast in games. Against the Kings, he made jumpers from 16, 27, 29 and 30 feet during one second-quarter stretch, going on a personal 11-2 run to break the game open.
That gave him 23 points before halftime. It was the sixth consecutive game in which Doncic scored 20 or more points in the first half. He had done that once before as a member of the Dallas Mavericks in 2023, and Allen Iverson did it in 2005. Those are the only such first-half streaks in the past 30 seasons.
“He comes down [in the second quarter] and makes three shots in a row that there’s only five guys in the NBA can make,” Redick said. “All of a sudden a tie ballgame is a nine- or 10-point lead. The team feeds off that.”
The Lakers did feed off it, stretching their lead as high as 18 points in a runaway win over the 1-7 Kings. Doncic finished with 40 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, and the Lakers improved to 7-2 this season.
Lakers centre Walker Kessler summed up the mood in the visitors’ room.
“You can call it a wave, you can call it a tsunami, you can call it whatever you want,” Kessler said. “He’s scoring the ball. If you want to call it a wave, we’re surfing the wave a little bit.”