LOS ANGELES — Imagine you’re JJ Redick.
Your heart is still pounding, the adrenaline racing through your body after your team just beat the Denver Nuggets 127-125 in overtim on Saturday night. You enter the locker room and to your right is Luka Dončić, the player who made the game-winning shot across the court from you on the left baseline. To your left is 41-year-old LeBron James, already sore after extending like Superman to save a loose ball days after you spoke about him embracing the little things that can impact winning around Dončić and Austin Reaves.
In the back right, Marcus Smart is sitting after helping torture Jamal Murray into 13-straight missed shots on one end and banging the game’s biggest three in overtime on the other. Deandre Ayton is next to him, having just made both his shots in overtime while forcing Nikola Jokić into a 1-for-4 in the extra frame.
Glance again to your left and spot Jake LaRavia, who won his 11 minutes with heart and hustle, and Luke Kennard who swished a big second-half three. Look right at Rui Hachimura who wrestled with Jokić, and Jaxson Hayes who calmly made three big fourth-quarter free throws to keep the game in reach.
And in the back left corner is Austin Reaves, who somehow lasered a free throw 9 feet and 11 inches off the bottom part of the left side of the rim before grabbing the rebound and hitting a floater to force overtime.
This is the group you greet having just gotten the win. This is your team, winners of eight of its last nine, at least momentarily killing the narrative that it can’t punch up against NBA title contenders.
Then imagine the deep breath you have to take because there’s still so much more to come.
“Is coalesce a word? Is that the right word? For coming together? Jelling?” he asked the media after the best win of the Lakers’ season. “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 the win, his team wrapped a stretch of schedule in which it definitively handled New York and Minnesota, and looked like it was about to do the same to Denver. But even after the Lakers’ 17-point lead against the Nuggets crumbled because of cold shooting on their end and poised shot-making on the Nuggets’, the Lakers found enough resolve.
Dončić wrote the game’s final scene, beating a double team to hit a step-back jumper that captured the Lakers’ season series against the rival Nuggets. He finished with 30 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists, but cold shooting in the second and third quarters combined with six turnovers threatened to overshadow the positive results. HIs swished 18-footer made sure that wouldn’t happen.
LUKA DONCIC FOR THE LEAD WITH 0.5 SECONDS REMAINING pic.twitter.com/yIElzu3cpw
— LakersMuse (@LALMuse) March 15, 2026
For Dončić, it was his first game-winner since he was shockingly traded to the Lakers in 2025. In the aftermath of the deal, some close to him predicted the opportunity to play on one of the NBA’s biggest stages would eventually help him get over any hurt feelings he was carrying.
He said he felt goosebumps as he made the sellout crowd erupt. The opportunity to thrive under this kind of pressure came to fruition.
“For sure,” Dončić said. “A lot of legends played here. They (left) a lot behind with the Lakers. So obviously I did. And obviously it was still a regular season (game), but that was a little bit of that feeling that today for sure.”
In his mind, the game-winner wasn’t even the biggest shot. That honor went to either the one Reaves missed or the one he then made.
With the Lakers down three and Denver fouling to keep them from attempting a game-tying 3-pointer, Redick called for Reaves to intentionally miss a second free-throw attempt. Like a two-iron flying under a branch, he rifled it quickly off the left side of the rim, the side where Denver didn’t have a rebounder. With Ayton fighting Jokić underneath the hoop, Reaves was able to hit the shot to force overtime.
AUSTIN REAVES MISSES TRHER FRREE-THROW, GETS IT BACK AND TIES THE GAME
OVERTIME IN LOS ANGELES pic.twitter.com/jSzQpcNWvx
— Italo Santana (@BulletClubIta) March 15, 2026
He’d actually pulled the play off before — maybe in a high school game he said – but never quite like this.
“It’s not easy. I’m just mad I had to mess up my free-throw percentage,” he said. “No, I mean, you see two people on the right side, one was on the left, obviously DA and Joker were on the left side. I thought if I threw it fast enough that Jokić wouldn’t have the time to get his hands up to grab the ball. So, that was kind of the thought process and it worked.”
After Denver’s half-court heave didn’t fall, Reaves grabbed the ball and smiled. “I love you,” cameras caught him saying to the basketball.
He scored 32 points and has made his presence alongside Dončić for the long haul look more and more like a lock. The Lakers’ belief in Reaves is so strong, in fact, that Redick tasked James with filling in around the Lakers’ backcourt.
Saturday, he did that in a number of ways — none more obvious than a Superman dive for a loose ball in the final minute.
LeBron James dives for the loose ball and forces a jumpball 😲
📲 Watch games LIVE and on-demand with NBA League Pass 👉 https://t.co/WlO7mD5jom#NBAHighlights pic.twitter.com/W6zy0jahG3
— NBA Australia (@NBA_AU) March 15, 2026
“I told him 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,” Redick said. “(James) said, ‘You’re right, I’ve never done that.’
“It’s awesome.”
While Denver would win the eventual jump ball, Smart immediately got a steal and his layup made a comeback in the final minute of the fourth a reality.
“Just living in the moment,” said James, who left with a slight limp, in no small part because of the dive. “Understanding the impact of the game, the implications of the game and our opponent and what we’re trying to build. So, every possession matters.”
The Lakers’ big three had plenty to celebrate Saturday night. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
For most of James’ time in Los Angeles, the Lakers and the Nuggets have been in battles where the possessions really matter. The teams have met three times in the playoffs, with the Lakers winning just once. In addition, Denver had won 11-straight regular-season games against them.
But since Dončić joined the team, the Lakers have won four of the five games he’s played against the Nuggets. Usually, Denver capitalizes on the Lakers’ mistakes. Saturday, the Lakers scored 33 points off 16 Denver turnovers and never looked unnerved in crunch time, even as Aaron Gordon (27 points) and Jokić (24 points, 16 rebounds and 14 assists) made huge plays.
“Everybody that played tonight made a big play at some point in that game,” Reaves said.
The Lakers are now 17 games above .500 with 15 games left on the schedule. A month ago, seeing Houston twice, Miami, Orlando, Detroit all on the same road trip might’ve seemed like too much. Two games with the first-place Thunder, one with the Cleveland Cavaliers and one with the tough-minded Phoenix Suns are still to come.
In total, it could look like a lot. But imagine you’re Redick Saturday night. Imagine walking into the locker room and looking at a team that just gave everything it could to get one win.
“It was just a great basketball game,” he said.
And the Lakers, all of a sudden, seem ready to win more of those.
