Luka Doncic leads the NBA in scoring at 34.4 points per game, and he showed the Milwaukee Bucks why.
Doncic outdueled Giannis Antetokounmpo (who is second in the NBA in scoring) and dropped 41 on the Bucks Thursday night, leading the Lakers to a comfortable 119-105 win.
LUKA MAGIC 🆚 GREEK FREAK
Two of the top leading scorers faced off in Milwaukee tonight with the Lakers taking home the victory!
Dončić: 41 PTS, 9 REB, 6 AST, 5 3PM
Antetokounmpo: 32 PTS, 10 REB, 5 AST pic.twitter.com/kfwZIM5QJW
— NBA (@NBA) November 16, 2025
The Lakers improved to 10-4 on the season, doing so without LeBron James, who is nearing a return from sciatica and was assigned to the Lakers’ G-League team, the South Bay Lakers, to get some 5-on-5 run. That, along with Bronny starting against the Bucks, led to the line of the night from Austin Reaves.
“How about Bronny James starting in the NBA, and LeBron’s assigned to the G League?” Reaves asked. “That’s fun. That’s awesome.”
This was also the game where Lakers rookie Adou Thiero played his first minutes and scored his first NBA points. As is tradition, the Lakers wanted to give him the game ball, and so Jared Vanderbilt held it after the game. However, the officiating crew chief, Pat Fraher, took the ball away from Vanderbilt and went to give it to a Bucks’ team attendant, reports Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
"[Fraher] said he’s going to write me up,” Vanderbilt told ESPN. “I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. These refs, they just want to have their power or something, I don’t know. I don’t know what he was reaching for. That’s been a thing since way before I was in the league. What, was he going to take the ball home or something?”
Noticing the commotion at center court, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo intervened by taking the ball from the team attendant and handing it to Lakers star Luka Doncic.
A classy move by Antetokounmpo, as Reaves noted later in his comments.