After a thrilling 132-130 win over the Sacramento Kings at the Golden 1 Center on Saturday night, the Los Angeles Lakers (19-21) are on a five-game winning streak and sit two games back of the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference.

The Lakers are 7-5 since Anthony Davis' foot injury (8-5 including the game he got hurt). They look like an entirely different ballclub than the one that stumbled through the first month of the season — in spirit, depth, and execution. Their last two wins have come without Austin Reaves, Lonnie Walker IV, and Troy Brown Jr. The win before that came without LeBron James against a full-strength Miami Heat squad. Since their 2-10 start, the Lakers have fielded one of the best offenses in basketball.

“When I was hired here, I was excited about the whole process of turning this thing around,” Darvin Ham said Saturday. “And the type of guys we got in the locker room, it’s a lot of talk about our roster all the time. But to me, if you really put in the work and you really buy into the group theory and what we’re trying to get done as a unit, you set yourself up for a ton of success.”

Here are five keys to their streak, during which they have the sixth-best net rating in the NBA.

5. Thomas Bryant

Bryant has been a revelation.

Since taking over for Davis as the starting center — not including the game AD got hurt, in which Bryant outperformed Nikola Jokic in the second half and earned Game Ball honors — he has averaged 16.9 points and 10.6 rebounds. During the winning streak, he's putting up 21.2 points and 13.6 rebounds per game while shooting 71.9% from the field.

“Thomas Bryant, I mean he plays like an AD right now, close to it,” said Dennis Schroder. “Doing a great job being ready, staying ready. We're finding him, getting second possessions for us — offensive rebounds, clutch buckets. He's playing great.”

His infectious motor never ceases. What he lacks in rim protection he makes up for on the glass. He nearly always runs himself out of gas in each extended run of play due to his unwavering commitment to beat opposing bigs down the floor and book it in transition.

“It’s funny, one game, the vets actually said, ‘We don’t play hard. We’re not playing hard enough,’” Bryant said, without citing the specific early-season game. “So I always put that in the back of my head whenever we step out on that floor, I need to give it my all no matter what. Whether it’s the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, it cannot change.”

LeBron called Bryant one of the most skilled big men in the NBA, shouting out his soft hands, ability to score from multiple levels, and relentless energy. James said he has already had “visions” of how formidable a frontcourt featuring himself, Davis, and Bryant could be.

“He’s gone up against some hellified opponents, man,” Ham said about Bryant. “You talk about Jokic, you talk about (Bam Adebayo), you talk about (Domantas Sabonis). He’s really going toe-to-toe with a lot of top-shelf talent.”

Ham wants physicality and paint production to define the team's identity. The Lakers outscored the Kings 70-48 inside and lead the NBA in points in the paint over the past five games. Bryant is the primary reason why.

(One other major contributor to their effectiveness inside has been their improved synchronicity on pick-and-rolls, with an emphasis on rolls. The first thing Ham credited in his postgame presser in Sacramento was the Lakers' insistence on attacking in PnRs, rather than settling.)

4. Dennis Schroder is on one

Like Bryant, Schroder has smartly deployed the tried-and-true strategy of not missing shots.

Schroder has averaged 21.4 points on .508/.536(!)/.875 splits during the win streak. Over the last 11 contests, he's shooting 50% from 3. He's providing his customarily feisty defense.

“They are both talented players,” Russell Westbrook said about Schroder and Bryant. “They've proven themselves in this league. It really just brings me a lot of joy to see them doing well consistently. It's really great for our team.”

Over the past five games, lineups featuring Schroder, Bryant, and Russ have outscored opponents by 27 points per 100 possessions. Massive.

There are still weak spots on the roster. Yet, its most significant improvement from last season may be the sheer fact that it's populated by dudes who hungrily seek to contribute in some fashion to every given possession. Schroder and Bryant are leading this charge, in addition to filling up the stat sheet. Earlier this week, they stepped up to deliver the Lakers their most improbable win of the season.

The Lakers have gone 16-11 since Schroder and Bryant returned from the same thumb surgery.

3. Respectable 3-point shooting

The Lakers' perimeter ineptitude was among the league's most reliable punchlines early in the season. LeBron questioned the shooting on the roster after Game 1.

Slowly but surely, though, they've lasered in.

The Lakers made 30.4% of their triples through the first 20 games (abysmal). Since Dec. 2, they've converted nearly 36%. That number, ironically, is dragged down by LeBron, who has shot a frigid 29% from deep — decidedly below his usual mark. They've also been the second-best corner-three team since December, per Silver Screen & Roll — a giant improvement from the first quarter of the season, and another by-product of their increased sharpness on pick-and-rolls.

In the modern NBA, it's extremely hard to win unless your ball handlers are threats from distance. The quality 3-point shooting over the past three games from Schroder (13-0f-20), Westbrook (6-of-15), and Beverley (6-of-13) has done wonders for the Lakers' offense.

(BTW, Russ isn't on this list purely for numerical reasons. He's the Sixth Man of the Year frontrunner and has largely played superb ball as of late. His brutal first half against the Charlotte Hornets before exiting with a minor injury was the lone reason for his exclusion. There are many more than five reasons why the Lakers have turned things around.)

2. Crunch-time execution

Late-game situations had been the Lakers' Kryptonite (CryptoNite?) for the first two-plus months of 2022-23. Through Dec. 29, Los Angeles had far and away the worst clutch net rating in hoops. Correspondingly, they let a plethora of winnable games slip away due to rickety offense, poor rebounding, and ill-advised decisions.

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This was for a few reasons. While Ham has steadfastly committed to bringing Russ off the bench, he has felt obligated to let him play most, though not every, crunch-time scenario. Even in his glory days, Russ has never thrived in clutch situations — his full-throttled, one-speed approach isn't as useful when the game slows down, and his unfocused defense and questionable shot selection can be calamitous in tight moments. His chemistry with LeBron and AD remains a work in progress. As a collective, the Lakers hadn't developed enough cohesion or consistent shooting to win close contests, even with AD.

The tune has changed over the past couple of weeks. Since Dec. 29, the Lakers have the second-best clutch offensive rating and third-best clutch net rating. The three games of their current win streak that didn't come against the Atlanta Hawks all ventured into crunch time, and the Lakers passed each test.

“It shows a little bit of growth in our team,” said Russ. “Closing the game is a skill, and I know it's something we're capable of doing.”

“A couple months back, we would've lost a game like this,” Ham acknowledged after the Kings W. “As much as it hurt (to lose close games early on), we need to go through this process. We need to learn. It's trial by fire. All those experiences is causing us to be more conscious on offense. Not just throwing any possessions late in the game. Being deliberate, knowing who we want the ball to go to, knowing what actions we want to get into, knowing what combinations of players we want in those actions. And the same defensively.”

1) LeBron James, beating Father Time

After the Dec. 28 loss in Miami, LeBron made headlines by stating his impatience about playing on a losing team at this stage of his career. The Lakers haven't lost since.

“I think everybody took it in stride,” Ham said about LeBron's comments. “No one disagreed with that. … He's stating facts. No one wants to be comfortable with losing or get repetitious with losing … It's almost like ringing an alarm. Like, ‘Everybody wake up, it's time to get over ourselves, buckle down, and compete as a unit on both sides of the ball.'”

Since turning 38 years young on Dec. 30, LeBron is averaging 38 points, nine rebounds, and eight assists. He made the biggest shot of the game in the final minute on Saturday. He's playing with a combination of skill, determination, force, and vigor that simply shouldn't be possible in Year 20.

LeBron's dominance is driving the Lakers' success sans AD, and it's putting increasing pressure on the front office to upgrade the roster before the deadline — even if LeBron refutes the notion that he's frustrated or pushing an agenda. (Beverley and Kendrick Nunn's respective upticks in play should help Rob Pelinka on the trade wires before the Feb. 9 deadline.)

We'll learn a lot more about whether the Lakers are contenders or pretenders in the coming weeks, as they'll face a slew of playoff-caliber squads, including the Denver Nuggets, Dallas Mavericks, Philadelphia 76ers, Memphis Grizzlies, and Los Angeles Clippers, among others.