Luka and the Lakers are rolling, and even Redick is in awe.
The Los Angeles Lakers landed in Miami at four in the morning after a Wednesday night win over the Rockets.
Most teams would sleepwalk through that kind of schedule.
Luka Doncic instead decided to deliver one of the most dominant performances the NBA has seen this season, erupting for 60 points in a 134-126 victory over the Heat to push the Lakers' winning streak to eight games.
Head coach JJ Redick did not mince words after the game.
"It was a superhero performance," Redick said. "I thought him keeping us afloat early was really important. He made big shots, he made tough shots, made a lot of right reads. When he gets it going like that, you just kind of let him go. His teammates saw that. The shot making was unreal tonight."
Doncic finished 18-of-30 from the field and 9-of-17 from deep, adding seven rebounds and five steals in 38 minutes.
He scored 39 of his 60 after halftime, taking over after the Lakers trailed by as many as 15 in the first quarter.
His third-quarter explosion, highlighted by three consecutive three-pointers to give the Lakers their first lead, completely shifted the momentum.
It was the most points ever scored against the Heat by an opposing player, topping James Harden's 58 from 2019, and the highest-scoring game by a Laker since Kobe Bryant's farewell in 2016.
A Historic Stretch
Thursday's explosion was not an isolated event. It was the peak of a stretch that has Doncic looking like the best player on the planet.
Over the Lakers' eight-game winning streak, he has averaged 40.9 points, 8.9 rebounds and 7.4 assists on 50.2 percent shooting from the field and 42.2 percent from three.
He dropped 40 on the Rockets just 24 hours earlier, giving him 100 points in a roughly 24-hour span.
He has now scored at least 30 in eight consecutive games and hit 50 twice in his last five.
Doncic also set the Lakers' single-season record for three-pointers with 232 and counting in just 58 games, passing D'Angelo Russell's mark of 226.
On a night when he was listed as questionable with hip soreness and admitted on the broadcast that he was exhausted, he still went out and put up the kind of line that belongs in a history book.
Bam Adebayo, fresh off his own 83-point game against Washington earlier this month, simply tipped his hat.
The MVP Conversation
The NBA's official MVP ladder currently has Doncic sitting at No. 4 behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama and Nikola Jokic. Redick thinks that ranking undersells what his star has done for the Lakers.
"To the MVP point, we would not be anywhere near the position we're in without him having the season that he's having," Redick said. "Particularly of late, he's dominating right now."
He has a point.
The Lakers are 45-25 and hold the third seed in the Western Conference, riding the kind of momentum that could push them into a real postseason threat.
Doncic leads the league in scoring at 33.0 points per game and ranks among the top players in assists and rebounds.
Gilgeous-Alexander's consistency and Oklahoma City's record give him the strongest case, and Wembanyama's two-way dominance with San Antonio is impossible to ignore.
But what Doncic is doing right now, carrying a team through a grueling stretch while putting up historic numbers, deserves to be part of that conversation.
Thursday was also a milestone night for LeBron James, who tied Robert Parish's all-time record with his 1,611th regular-season game.
James contributed a quiet but impactful 19 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists on 8-of-12 shooting, his 152nd career triple-double.
At 41 years old, on the second night of a back-to-back after landing in Miami before dawn, he showed up and competed.
That leadership, alongside Doncic's insane play, is what has this team rolling.
The Lakers visit Orlando on Saturday, and the way Doncic is playing, nobody should want to see them right now.
Whether or not the MVP voters ultimately reward him with the trophy, there is no question about what he is doing on the court.