Luka Doncic, Austin reacts like the chances of title of 3 seeds lakers

Los Angeles – After the Los Angeles Lakers closed their last home game of the regular season by buying the Houston Rockets 140-109 Friday evening to win the head of the West Conference, Austin Reaves joked that the team campaign, sometimes, felt as five seasons in one.

All the ups and downs and the twists and turns and the built -in turns provided Reaves to clarter while he was looking at the playoffs.

“I have the impression that we could win a championship, to be honest with you,” said Reaves.

Luka Doncic, who scored 39 points in 13 shots out of 19 in three quarters, agreed with Reaves.

“This is our only objective,” said Doncic. “I think we have the team to do it.”

The Lakers made sure to take advantage of their victory on Friday evening.

Coach JJ Redick had to transform into a Kelly Green Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt before her post-match press conference after being soaked in the locker room while the players bombed him with ice buckets to celebrate the 50th victory of the team.

“The whole locker room is literally water,” said Rui Hachimura with a smile. “Right water.”

Hachimura declared that Redick told the team that after being hired by in June, leaving behind a booming career as a broadcaster and podcaster of the NBA, he set himself two goals for himself: to win 50 games and to secure the seeded n ° 3 (76 of the 78 champions of all time in the league were the head of N ° 3 or better).

Friday, he accomplished both.

“Just incredibly proud of our team,” said Redick after having apologized for the $ 17,000 in damages he estimated at the Lakers caused to the changing room. “It is an accomplishment to win 50 games in the regular season for a year. I think that especially this year, in this Western Conference, this is the case. And this is a credit for our players. Everyone at different times has contributed to winning. They all participated in a winning culture.”

Although Donon has become the best player in Los Angeles in the section, this Lakers team has reached this point with LeBron James paving the way in the past seven years.

James, who left the match after scoring 14 points and eight assists in 22 minutes before seeming to modify his left area of ​​the hip / groin, is “well”, according to Redick. The 22 -year -old veteran left the arena without talking to journalists, but congratulated the team with a message on X after the match.

“Dude, I was going to say something, but it’s useless at this stage of my career! Anyway, more important CJs for a season of 50 victories in the head of the west and the season after the season!”

Although it was not clear to what James made specifically when he wrote that he wanted to “say something”, the former big pistons of Detroit, Great Thomas, had criticized him for having crossed his personal training five hours before the shirt without shirt during the cover of the NBA TV game.

“I am completely completely 100%,” said Thomas when networks cameras showed James’ early routine. “I just think that the professionalism of our NBA league has decreased so much.”

We also don’t know what Team will face it in the first round. The Golden State Warriors, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets all have a chance to get the seeded n ° 6 in the West and lock the Lakers as Adversary, before the last two days of the regular season this weekend.

For the moment, the Lakers will go to Portland to play Trail Blazers in the final on Sunday – and will surely hold most of their rotation players – and will then have a week before welcoming match 1 of their first round series next weekend.

“The good part of the season is coming, so you have to stay ready, stay locked up, but that’s for sure, the rest will be great for me,” said Doncic.

It will be the first time that the playoffs have opened with a home match since 2010-11, last season of Phil Jackson as a coach. (Lakers were seeded n ° 1 in 2019-2020, but the playoffs were played in the NBA bubble in Orlando.)

And they will have the marker of total points of all time n ° 1 in James and player n ° 2 on average of the playoffs to Dononic.

“It’s not just me and LeBron,” said Donic. “We have an excellent team around us; everyone helps us in many ways. So, if we want to win the championship, it will take us all.”