SALT LAKE CITY — On any given night, Luka Doncic can treat the world to a special display.
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Whether the Lakers’ Slovenian star is on a roll is beside the point. Just a few shots can get Doncic rolling.
Three days ago, Doncic was dismissive over his exploits through two games – a collection of turnover-prone basketball masked by his always high-scoring display.
“My game was terrible,” Doncic said after Friday’s victory over the Clippers, when the Lakers escaped with a win in the fourth quarter despite the 27-year-old star guard’s 11 turnovers.
Wash away any worries of Doncic needing a run-up to find his rhythm – after an offseason in which he opted not to play for the Slovenian National Team in favor of spending more time with his two daughters and rehabbing the left hamstring that ended his season last April.
Doncic is finding his rhythm, his basketball pulse. Even if Doncic is not fully there quite yet, Sunday in Salt Lake City was the six-time All-NBA selection at his best; a masterclass display of why Lakers president of basketball operations/general manager Rob Pelinka jumped at the unexpected opportunity to acquire the perennial MVP candidate when the Dallas Mavericks made Doncic available via trade in early 2025.
“I’m still getting there honestly,” Doncic said. “This is the first time I didn’t play basketball in six or seven months, which is a long time. So I’m not used to it. So I think I’m still getting there. But you know, today was a little bit better.”
“The Don,” as Lakers’ television play-by-play broadcaster Bill Macdonald affectionately refers to Doncic, torched the Jazz for 52 points on 17-for-30 shooting from the field while making eight 3-pointers.
The Lakers (3-0) trailed by 18 points after the first quarter, but they regrouped in the second quarter and eventually won by nine points, 132-123.
“When somebody gets hot, and gets going like that, you can’t do nothing but get excited and scream and yell,” Lakers guard Collin Sexton said of watching Doncic dominate Utah on Sunday.
Doncic’s 52-point showcase was the NBA’s first 50-point game of the young season, his third as a member of the Lakers and the 10th of his career. He tied LeBron James for the fifth-most 50-point games in franchise history, while passing James – his former teammate – for the sixth-most 40-point games as a Laker with 19 instances overall.
Scoring wasn’t all Doncic delivered Sunday.
His 10 assists made him the first Lakers player since 1963 to record 50 points and 10 assists in the same game, something only Hall of Famers Jerry West and Elgin Baylor had done before him.
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Last season’s NBA scoring champion forced steals – most notably stripping Jazz guard Ace Bailey in the paint before sending Bailey to the floor with an ankle breaker and converting a 3-pointer over him for a 74-71 halftime lead. Doncic sank a pair of 3-pointers in the final minutes of the game, giving the Lakers a 127-121 lead – a display that sent Delta Center into “M-V-P” chants.
Walker Kessler played in Utah for four years. Sunday was meant to be all about the new Lakers center’s return to Salt Lake City. Instead, Doncic took over the game – as he has done many times before.
“Getting MVP chants in someone else’s arena is crazy,” Kessler said. “Obviously deserving. It speaks for itself.”
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Doncic scored or assisted on 79 points on Sunday, the third-most in Lakers history behind only Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game in 2006 and Elgin Baylor, who created 80 points in a game in November 1959.
“He’s completely bought in,” said Lakers guard Austin Reaves, who Coach JJ Redick referred to as “Mr. Consistency” on Sunday after he added 29 points in support.
Reaves (shooting above 60% from the field and 3-point range) and Doncic combined for 81 total points and made 21 of their 24 free-throw attempts.
“Anybody that overreacts to him not making shots in the first two games, it’s the first two games,” Reaves said of Doncic. “My thought process would never change. That’s the same player who’s capable of doing amazing things on the court. …”
“It was a matter of time before he did what he did.”
REBOUNDING ISSUES
The Lakers’ efforts on the glass have left plenty to be desired despite their 3-0 start to the season.
They rank dead last in the NBA (through Sunday) with just 37 rebounds through three games and last on the offensive glass as well with just 7.7 offensive rebounds per game.
When asked what the Lakers need to do to improve their rebounding, Redick said his players simply need to “box out.”
The Jazz outrebounded the Lakers 52-31 on Sunday.
“Jesus Christ, I didn’t know it was that bad,” Reaves said when told of the rebounding disparity in the box score.
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TRAIL BLAZERS AT LAKERS
When: Tuesday, 8 p.m.
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/Radio: NBC (Ch. 4), Spectrum SportsNet, 710 AM, 980 AM