On Saturday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers pulled off one of the more wild wins of the 2025-26 NBA season with a thrilling overtime victory over the Denver Nuggets. It looked like the Lakers were dead to rights in the closing seconds of regulation, but Austin Reaves' intentionally missed free throw was executed to perfection, and Luka Doncic ultimately won things for Los Angeles in the extra frame.
After the game, Lakers head coach JJ Redick attempted to expand his vocabulary in order to describe how the Lakers are coming together at the right time.
“Is ‘coalesce' a word? Is that the right word? For coming together?” Redick asked, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “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.”
The Lakers are currently on a five-game winning streak, having knocked off some tough competition along the way, including both the Nuggets and the New York Knicks last week. Questions about the Lakers' defense have started to quiet down, as Los Angeles has played some improved basketball on that end of the floor amid the winning streak.
Los Angeles currently occupies the number three spot in the Western Conference, the same place where they finished the regular season a year ago, and as the NBA playoffs approach, the team certainly seems to be playing its best basketball at the right time.
It also helps that Los Angeles is staying mostly healthy, as Reaves, Doncic, and LeBron James are getting to share the floor consistently for the first time all season.
Los Angeles will next hit the floor for the first of two road games vs the Houston Rockets on Monday evening.
