Reaves Drops Season-High 43 as Luka-Less Lakers Hold Off Pistons for Fifth Straight Win

The Lakers knew this one would test them. Luka Doncic, the league's leading scorer at 40.1 points a game, was ruled out before tip-off with lower-back tightness, and the Detroit Pistons — owners of the league's best defence — were waiting at home. For about twelve minutes, none of that mattered.

Los Angeles came out and played the best quarter of basketball it has produced all season. The Lakers shot 16 of 23 from the field, forced eight Detroit turnovers and turned them into 17 points, and ripped off runs of 10-0 and 9-0 to lead 38-14 after one quarter. A Walker Kessler basket to open the second made it 40-14, and the game looked like a blowout before most of the crowd had settled in.

Austin Reaves was the reason. The guard, who has spent the season as Doncic's running mate, took the keys to the offence and never gave them back. He scored 43 points on 14-of-27 shooting, made all 11 of his free throws, and produced his first 40-point game of the season — and the Lakers needed every one of them, because Detroit refused to go away.

The Pistons' bench dragged them back into it. Daniss Jenkins, a reserve guard, had a career night with 31 points, going 7 of 9 from the field and 6 of 7 from three in the first half alone as Detroit rained in nine second-quarter threes to cut the gap to 61-48 at half-time. Kevin Huerter added 24 points with five assists and five blocks, and Cade Cunningham and Duncan Robinson, quiet all night, eventually found their footing as the Pistons kept chipping away.

A banked three from Reaves with 6:41 left in the third put Los Angeles back up 78-61, and it felt like order had been restored. Then Detroit closed the quarter on an 11-0 run in the final 2:04, feasting on three straight Lakers turnovers, and suddenly it was 84-81. The Pistons got within a single point three times in the fourth quarter, and with 9:14 left they could have tied it — only for Cunningham to miss the second of two free throws.

That was as close as they got. Reaves found Ziaire Williams for a three that made it 100-96, Kessler's three-point play stretched it to 107-99 with 2:15 to go, and then Reaves delivered the dagger himself, an off-balance fadeaway three in the final minute that pushed the lead back to eight. He clinched it from the line.

Williams and Collin Sexton each scored 17 off the bench, and Kessler finished with 12 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks. Quentin Grimes added 12 — ten of them in that furious first quarter — and later had X-rays on an injured finger in his right hand that came back negative. For Detroit, the loss was a second straight defeat, the first time this season the Pistons have lost back-to-back games, and it came despite a 19-of-48 night from three-point range.

The win moved the Lakers to 9-2 and their fifth in a row, and they did it the hard way: building a huge lead, watching it nearly vanish, and finding the composure to close. Doncic, who had scored a season-high 53 on Friday in Portland, watched from the sideline. His team showed it can win without him — just not comfortably. The Lakers now head to Atlanta on Monday night to close out the back-to-back.