Luka Doncic surpassed Kobe Bryant, Jerry West in LA history with a monster game

Luka Doncic missed time last week after multiple injuries, in which his leg and finger received blows. But Doncic returned to action Friday night against the Memphis Grizzlies and didn’t miss a beat. His strong play continued on Sunday as the Lakers took care of business at home against the Miami Heat, 130-120, and Doncic finished with 29 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists tonight for his first triple-double of the new campaign.

Doncic is on a tear, and it looks like all his hard work earlier in the offseason paid off in a big way. In fact, 29 points, which isn’t a bad number at all, is a big step up from where he scored at the start of the season. However, Dončić now has a total of 165 points in the season, which is the most any Lakers player scored in the first four games of a season, surpassing Kobe Bryant (146) and Jerry West (154) in the process, according to NBA.com/Stats on X (formerly Twitter).

With 165 points in four games to start the season, Doncic is averaging an insane 41.3 points per game year. Now, the Lakers star is unlikely to maintain this pace throughout the year. After all, no one except Wilt Chamberlain has scored more than 37 points in a season. But this is a huge indicator that Doncic should be in for a big season, especially now that he’s become the Lakers’ undisputed best player amid LeBron James’ battle with sciatica.

It stays that way puzzling that the Dallas Mavericks will waive someone of his caliber just to avoid some hypothetical problems that might arise. But the Mavs’ loss is the Lakers’ gain, and LA is sure to be smiling all the way to the top of the West.

Luka Doncic can’t buy a three-pointer, but he still leads the Lakers to victory

From the start, something was wrong with Doncic’s shot on Sunday night against the Heat. He couldn’t hit his patented stepback jumpers and finished the night making just one of his 11 attempts from beyond the arc.

And then Doncic shot 8-11 from two-point range and made 10 of his 12 free throw attempts on the night. He finished with a team-high 29 points as the Lakers overcame poor shooting nights from both Doncic and Austin Reaves (both shot 9-22 from the field against the Heat) to extend their winning streak.