DETROIT — Pat Riley had fired off a roaring remark, one meant to inspire fans and players alike before the Lakers played the Boston Celtics on the day of the Showtime Lakers coach’s statue unveiling on Star Plaza outside Crypto.com Arena.
“The time has come to kick some ass,” Riley said. “Time to kick some Boston ass.”
Back on Feb. 22, the Lakers’ response to the vibrant-as-ever Riley was to roll over against the Celtics, failing to eclipse 90 points in a 22-point loss; a reminder that these were not the 1980s Lakers, who matched punch for punch with Larry Bird in his green-and-white-embroidered stripes at The Forum. These were the Lakers who would lose to the Orlando Magic the next day on a bungled after-timeout play, and who would allow a crushing 3-pointer from Phoenix Suns forward Royce O’Neale two days later to lose three straight amid a sobering stretch after the All-Star break.
Could the work-in-progress Lakers become contenders? Could they turn competitive against teams with records over .500? Could Redick find a way to make the combination of Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and LeBron James work in a season where the trio hadn’t appeared on the floor together consistently this season?
Coach JJ Redick, who, like Riley, began his coaching career after spending time as a player-turned-broadcaster, described the Lakers as a “work in progress” after the defeat to the Magic on Feb. 24. Redick’s second season as Lakers coach had evolved into a pile of questions about team identity.
But now, with 10 games to go before the postseason, the questions appear to have been answered. A handful of months ago, nobody would have blinked an eye at the Lakers’ loss in Detroit. Now, even a stinging defeat highlights the strides the Lakers have made.
Much like they did against the Miami Heat on Thursday, an early deficit appeared to end their torrid run through top-half teams in the NBA. Against the Heat, the Lakers pushed through adversity to another victory thanks to Doncic’s 60-point display to push their win streak to eight straight. When the Lakers fell 113-110 in Detroit, missing on Doncic’s potential game-winning attempts twice, these were no longer the Lakers seeking an identity. The loss ended the longest winning streak in five years at nine games.
“That we’re a good basketball team,” Redick said Monday night when asked about takeaways from the winning streak. “I believe that we’re a good basketball team. I thought we could be a good basketball team the entire season. We saw flashes of it. We saw short stretches of it, but we’re a good basketball team, and I think we have to continue to play together.”
Redick has watched Deandre Ayton embrace what his role on the Lakers requires: hard screens, offensive rebounds and second-chance looks, rather than the star performances he’d normalized to early in his career in Phoenix.
“Everybody’s playing for each other and keeping each other accountable,” Ayton said. “So that’s what you guys are seeing out there.”
Redick publicly identified James as the Lakers’ third scorer, behind Doncic and Reaves, and has observed as the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer’s off-the-ball plays sparked victories against the Denver Nuggets in overtime, and in Luke Kennard’s last-second game winner in Orlando. All three of the Lakers’ stars are healthy, producing a 9.1 in plus-minus across their last seven games since James returned from a three-game injury absence, improving their season’s mark to 2.5.
James, Doncic and Reaves have still only played just 25 games together.
“It is remarkable to me, and I’m just thinking,” Redick said, “not an excuse, but our winning streak has also coincided with us being healthy.”
Reaves said that the team’s physicality and intensity has improved across March, a claim backed up by their top-10 defensive rating in their past 14 games (winning 12 of them). James added that following Monday night’s loss that he believed the Lakers have built positive habits across their streak, traits they can take on their way to the first round of the playoffs starting in less than a month on April 18.
“There were a couple games where we got down,” James said. “A couple games that we got up, teams made a run, took leads and we were able to stay resilient and come back. So we’re a tough-minded [group]. Even with tonight, we got down again versus a very good team on their home floor.”
Wins against the likes of the New York Knicks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets, changed a tune nationally about the Lakers (46-26). They’ve won dominantly. They’ve won ugly. They own tiebreakers over all three of Minnesota, Houston and Denver. Their third-place standing in the Western Conference appears likely to hold as they surged from seventh to third, trailing only the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder.
Games against the Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets and Washington Wizards, the Eastern Conference’s bottom three teams, are next, starting with the Pacers (16-56) at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Wednesday evening – a prime opportunity for the Lakers to wipe away a loss and inch toward the 50-win mark.
If the Lakers win seven of their final 10 games, they’ll reach 53 victories, the most for the franchise since the 2010-11 season in Phil Jackson’s final season in charge.
As Redick said Monday night, these Lakers are good. It just took the Lakers till mid-March to prove it.