The Los Angeles Lakers won their fourth game in a row last night, defeating their Western Conference opponent in the Utah Jazz in a tight, 108-106 game in Salt Lake City. 

Following the win, Luka Dončić spoke about the difficulty of being back on the court and playing again, even after having a four-day stretch with no games on the schedule coming into the contest. 

“I thought it was going to be easier with four days off, but it was even harder,” Dončić said during a postgame interview.

Dončić noted that it took time to get back into his rhythm against the Jazz.

“[I] feel like I didn’t have my legs today, a lot of short shots,” Dončić added. “But like I said, the important thing is to get rest and keep on.” 

The “short shots” assessment Dončić made was on point, as the Lakers’ star shot just 10-for-24 from the field and 3-for-12 from 3-point range against Utah. 

However, in spite of his subpar shooting night, Dončić was still able to put together a strong performance, as he finished two assists shy of a triple-double with 33 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists. 

Dončić is averaging a league-high 34.5 points per game this season, which is also a career high for the former Dallas Mavericks staple. He is also averaging 8.9 assists and 8.8 rebounds per game, putting together a triple-double effort almost nightly in the 12 games he’s played in. 

Besides Dončić, the Lakers have been able to rely on consistent play from several of their other players as well, especially when LeBron James was out to begin the season. 

Austin Reaves is averaging a career-high 27.6 points per game, which is more than a seven-point increase from his total last season. 

Rui Hachimura, like Reaves and Dončić, is also averaging a career high with 15 points per game so far this season. 

It’s inevitable that if James, as he continues to adapt to playing again after sitting out the first 14 games of the 2025-26 season with an injury, ultimately returns to a more familiar scoring clip this season, Dončić, Reaves and Hachimura’s numbers will all likely go down.

But if anything, that will be a good problem for the Lakers to have with a plethora of scorers to rely on as their season moves along. 

The Lakers, who sit at 12-4 on the young season, next play the Los Angeles Clippers at 11 p.m. EST on Nov. 25. That will mark the first game of a three-game home stand for Los Angeles before they spend most of December on the road with a six-game road trip from Dec. 4 to Dec. 23.