LA will be heading into the playoffs without its top two players, and Marcus Smart's presence should help to offset those losses.
Everyone knows the situation the Los Angeles Lakers are walking into right now. Luka Doncic is in Spain getting injections in a Grade 2 hamstring strain. Austin Reaves is dealing with a Grade 2 oblique injury of his own. Both are expected to miss the start of the first round against the Houston Rockets, which begins on April 18.
So where does that leave a team that just finished 53-29? It leaves them leaning on LeBron James at 41 years old, and it leaves them leaning on Marcus Smart in a bigger way than anyone anticipated heading into this postseason.
But Smart is no stranger to responsibility. He's played in 108 playoff games across his 11-year career, won a Defensive Player of the Year award, and made three All-Defensive First Teams. When he was asked to describe playoff basketball versus the regular season to someone who has never experienced it, he didn't sugarcoat it.
"I would probably have to say regular season is high school basketball, playoffs is college," Smart said. "Everything is under a microscope, and everything is this amount of mistakes that you can make, millimeters." This perspective is exactly what the Lakers need right now.
Mar 19, 2026; Miami, Florida, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Marcus Smart (36) drives to basket against Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo (13) during first half at Kaseya Center. Mandatory Credit: Isabella Frias-Imagn ImagesWhat Smart Brings That Can't Be Replaced Elsewhere
Doncic and Reaves combined for nearly 14 assists per game this season. That's not a void you fill with one player. But Smart showed on the final day of the regular season what he's capable of when his role expands, racking up ten assists in LA's blowout win over Utah.
Smart finished the regular season leading the entire Lakers roster in plus-minus, and he was fourth on the team in assists behind only LeBron, Doncic, and Reaves. Those are the three primary ball-handlers on the roster. Smart sitting right behind them tells you everything about how this coaching staff views his impact.
JJ Redick made it plain after the injuries hit. "It's important with the loss of AR and Luka, it's not just all on Luke Kennard and LeBron to be playmakers," Redick said. Smart is the answer to that problem. Not a perfect answer, but the best one available.
The Rockets Are a Perfect Storm of Problems
Houston isn't going to make any of this easy. The Rockets have aggressive point-of-attack defenders ready to hound Lakers ball-handlers all series long. That means LeBron will absorb enormous defensive attention, which should open things up for players like Smart to make plays.
But Smart just returned from missing nine straight games with a right ankle contusion. His conditioning will be tested. His reads will be tested. Everything, as he said, is under a microscope in the playoffs, and the margin for error millimeters thin.
The good news is that Smart has been in those moments before. He knows what the lights feel like when they get brighter, and that knowledge is genuinely irreplaceable on a roster that suddenly needs someone other than Luka and Reaves to step into that role.
Nobody is pretending this is an ideal situation for LA. But if there's a player on this roster built for exactly this kind of pressure, it's the guy who's been through this postseason ringer more than a handful of times.