Doncic's Near-Triple-Double Drags Lakers Past Spurs 118-116 for Fifth Straight Win

For three quarters, it looked like the kind of night that would finally catch up with the Lakers. They were missing LeBron James, still yet to play this season because of sciatica, and Austin Reaves, out for a second straight game with a groin problem. Across from them stood Victor Wembanyama and a San Antonio side that had opened the season on a five-game winning streak and arrived in Los Angeles believing it could bully the Lakers on their own floor. The Spurs led by 10 in the first quarter, by 12 in the third, and with the game slipping toward the final minutes, the Crypto.com Arena crowd had every reason to brace for a defeat.

Then Luka Doncic decided otherwise.

Doncic finished with 35 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds, a near triple-double assembled the hard way. He shot only 9 of 27 from the floor and went 1 of 9 in a third quarter in which San Antonio outscored Los Angeles 37-28, and he never once stopped hunting the plays that mattered. His stepback three with 2:31 remaining put the Lakers ahead 113-112, a lead they would not give back. Moments later he found Deandre Ayton, who drew a foul and sank both free throws to stretch the margin to three. Ayton was immense all night, finishing with 22 points and 10 rebounds, while Marcus Smart added 17 points, five assists and five rebounds and spent the evening guarding anyone the Spurs threw at him.

What made Doncic's night remarkable was not only the scoring. He tied a career high with five steals and added two blocks, including a rejection of the Spurs' Stephon Castle, and his defensive work drew the loudest reaction of the night from his own bench. Smart, told of the numbers afterwards, could only laugh. "DPOY, baby!" he said, joking that his teammate was suddenly a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. It was the kind of line that lands because it contains a grain of truth: on a night when his shot deserted him, Doncic found other ways to bend the game.

San Antonio still had its chances. Wembanyama fouled out with 1:40 left, barrelling into Rui Hachimura for an offensive foul that ended his evening, and the Lakers looked to have survived. But Kelly Olynyk's putback with one second on the clock cut the deficit to 118-116, Smart was called for a lane violation on the inbounds pass, and Julian Champagnie stepped to the line with 0.4 seconds left holding the chance to force overtime. Both free throws missed. The buzzer sounded, and the Lakers had their fifth straight win.

The victory moved Los Angeles to 7-2 and second in the Western Conference, one game behind Oklahoma City, and it did so without two of its biggest names. That is the part that will encourage the Lakers most. They have now won five in a row by leaning on Doncic's gravity and on the supporting cast around him, and they head out on a five-game road trip beginning Saturday in Atlanta with their season very much on track. The Spurs, meanwhile, fell to 5-2 with a second straight defeat, and will wonder how a 12-point lead and a famous name on the other side of the court slipped away quite so fast.