Despite LeBron James' absence, the Los Angeles Lakers are a different ballclub post-trade deadline — in spirit and on the scoreboard.

Following their impressive 122-112 victory over the Toronto Raptors at Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles improved to 8-3 since the deadline and 6-2 since the All-Star break. Each win has come against a team in playoff contention, and the majority of those games have occurred without LeBron and D'Angelo Russell.

The Lakers finally had DLo back on Friday after a six-game absence (sprained ankle). His smooth operating fueled another top-down team effort that rendered Anthony Davis (8 points) relatively irrelevant on the offensive end.

Wait, what?

 

The ensemble shined. Jarred Vanderbilt had 16 points and made a slew of elite hustle plays. Rui Hachimura midranged his way to 16. Dennis Schroder came off the bench for 23 points, 7 assists, 4 steals, and a +32 (!). Austin Reaves added 18 points in highlight-reel fashion.

Los Angeles hit 13-of-30 from downtown and outscored the Raptors 61-12 (!) in bench points.

As for the ice-man, Russell coolly put up 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting and made five threes — most of which came via crowd-pleasing pulls (he also dished 9 dimes).

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“Having DLo come out there and Dennis being able to see that initial wave and automatically know when he checks into the game what we need to do, what needs to be fixed or what needs to be sustained, it’s definitely a good luxury to have with DLo now being back in the lineup,” said Darvin Ham. “Just that one-two punch. So when he sits down. we’ve got another orchestrator to come in and keep us organized and set a tone.”

I asked Ham whether he's noticed a refreshed swagger in his group (DLo wasn't the only one doing the ice-in-my-veins celebration after buckets.) The Lakers have been playing with noticeably more joy and looseness in recent weeks.

At first, Ham told me the team (and coaching staff) always had swagger and shot me a wink. Then, he opened up a bit on his team's refined focus.

“These guys came in, all our newly acquired players…with a mindset to help us go somewhere. And that somewhere is the postseason. They're proving it with their play, their commitment, everything they're doing for one another.”

That mindset would have been laughable one month ago. Now, it's utterly reasonable. The surging, swaggering Lakers find themselves one game back of the No. 6 seed with (arguably) the league's friendliest remaining schedule. That's pretty cool.