LOS ANGELES – After dropping five out of the first six games without an injured LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers have started to come on strong with some impressive performances from some of their talented young players.

Against the Dallas Mavericks, it was Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball that stepped up with both players combining for 50 points to lead the team to a win over Luka Doncic's squad.

On Wednesday night, Kyle Kuzma took the reigns and had his best scoring performance to date after going a painful 4-for-20 against Dallas. Kuzma was red-hot from the field with the Detroit Pistons having no answer for the second-year forward. He torched Blake Griffin and company for a career-high 41 points in three quarters on 16-for-24 shooting and 5-of-10 from three-point range.

“My teammates allowed me to get a lot of shots, finding me,” Kuzma said. “I think, for the most part, everything was in the rhythm of the offense which was a good thing for everybody.”

Head coach Luke Walton talked about Kuzma's bounce-back performance after the game on Wednesday. Walton let it be known that Kuzma was in the gym during the team's off day on Tuesday and got up a lot of shots after his poor shooting performance against the Mavericks in preparation to take on the Pistons.

“It speaks about how much confidence he has and how much he believes in himself. What a lot of people don't know is even though yesterday was an off day, he was in the gym, and he got off 500 shots. He was working on his stroke, and he was working on his form. From what he's noticed on the breakdown of his jumper, we're trying to get it better.

“It's not like he just came out and had a hot night. He put in that work and had a really nice night.”

Following his career-high 41 points in which he only missed eight shots, the second-year forward talked about his shooting this season. Kuzma believes he's a much better shooter than his 47.1 percent from the floor and 30.6 percent from the beyond the arc dictates.

“I mean, I know I'm a great shooter,” Kuzma said. “My percentage may not reflect that, but I'm always confident in shooting. I'm always in the gym just trying to continue to put work in every single day. It paid off today, so just got to continue to be consistent with that.”

Kuzma's big night was not only his best scoring performance to date but a historic one. His 41 points became the most by a Lakers player in fewer than 30 minutes played in the shot clock era. He played just over 29 minutes on Wednesday before sitting out the entire fourth quarter.

With LeBron set to miss at least one more game, Kuzma will be looked upon to continue helping shoulder the scoring load in the absence of the superstar forward.

The Lakers will face the Utah Jazz on the road on Friday, which is the same day James will have his injured groin re-evaluated. They'll be back home on Sunday to take on James' former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, at the Staples Center.