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Dave McMenamin
Multiple Authors
LOS ANGELES — On a night where seemingly every player on the Lakers made a big play to lift them to a 127-125 overtime win over the Nuggets on Saturday, perhaps none was bigger than a missed shot by Austin Reaves.
In this case, it was an intentionally missed free throw with 5.2 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.
Reaves flung the ball off the left side of the front of the rim, chased down the offensive rebound and tossed in a 9-foot floater with 1.9 seconds left to tie the score at 118 and force overtime.
“I mean, I knew I was going to miss,” said Reaves, who led Los Angeles with 32 points, topping 30 for the third straight game. “I wasn’t going to give the ball an opportunity to go in. Some people shoot it high, and they end up making it on accident. But I don’t think my ball ever got over 10 feet.”
Deandre Ayton was the only Lakers player lined up on the left block, and he boxed three-time MVP Nikola Jokic under the basket, allowing Reaves a clear path to pursue the carom.
“It was very hard to do, and just for him to tie the game, that gave us the win, basically,” Luka Doncic said. “That execution was perfection.”
It set up more late-game magic from Doncic at the end of the extra session when, with the score tied, he hit an 18-foot step-back, fadeaway jump shot with 0.5 remaining to put the Lakers up by two. On Denver’s ensuing possession, he blocked former teammate Tim Hardaway Jr.’s 3-pointer at the buzzer to seal it.
“Went to my left hand, to my left step-back,” Doncic said. “I did that a couple times throughout my career, so I just trust the shot.”
While Doncic — who finished with 30 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his eighth triple-double of the season — was modest about following up his first 50-point game as a Laker with his first game winner for the franchise, LeBron James celebrated the 27-year-old star.
“Just a big-time shot by a f—ing generational player,” James said. “He’s just a big-time player, man. … We wanted the last shot. We wanted to put the ball in our guy’s hands.
“… It’s going to be just the first of many game winners like that for him in a Lakers uniform.”
Just like Doncic’s shot wouldn’t have happened without Reaves’ floater, the latter might not have happened if not for the effort James showed with under a minute to go in regulation.
With the Lakers trailing 112-111 with 54.3 seconds left, James dived on a loose ball to stop Christian Braun from getting an offensive rebound and forced a jump ball at center court when Jamal Murray tied him up on the floor.
“I told [James] after the game, I said, ‘In 23 years of watching you play in the NBA, the three years I watched you play in high school, I never saw you make a full-out extension dive like that,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “He said, ‘You’re right, I’ve never done that.'”
Redick said he told his team to treat Saturday like a playoff game, with the tiebreaker for the season series against Denver on the line and postseason positioning at stake. James said that message resonated, leading to efforts across the board similar to what he showed on the hustle play.
“I think all of us have heard it from our coaches when we were little: The first man to the floor usually gets the ball,” said James, who finished with 17 points, six rebounds and five assists in 40 minutes of playing time. “So that’s just my little league coach kind of in my head at that moment, understanding the significance of it.”
The Lakers also received key contributions from Marcus Smart (21 points, 5 steals), who had a strip leading to a go-ahead layup with 46.8 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter and followed that with a go-ahead 3-pointer with 30.7 seconds left in overtime. Ayton (9 points, 9 rebounds) had four points on 2-for-2 shooting, two rebounds and a block on Jokic in overtime.
Jokic (24 points, 16 rebounds, 14 assists) was 1-for-4 with two points and one board in overtime.
“It was only fitting that everybody on the floor did something, did something to get us that win,” Doncic said.
The Lakers have won five games in a row and eight of their past nine to climb to No. 3 in the Western Conference standings. They have a half-game lead on the No. 4 Houston Rockets, whom the Lakers will play Monday and Wednesday in Houston as the first two games of their six-game road trip.
“Is ‘coalesce’ a word? Is that the right word? For coming together?” Redick asked. “I think it feels like we’re coalescing right now in a really nice way. Still got a long way to go, still got a long way to go, but certainly optimistic with how we handled this stretch of games. … It’s big time.”