On Saturday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers put together one of their most impressive performances of the 2024-25 season with a blowout road win over the Denver Nuggets in a nationally televised affair. The Lakers were able to keep Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic in check throughout the evening and enjoyed a red-hot shooting night from beyond the arc en route to the victory.

After the game, head coach JJ Redick revealed that he put a lot of preparation into this contest, per Jovan Buha of The Athletic on X, formerly Twitter.

“Redick notes he hasn’t slept since the Portland game on Thursday in preparation for this game. He said he and his staff spent a lot of time preparing for Denver on both sides of the ball,” reported Buha.

Saturday's game marked the first time in a Lakers jersey that Luka Doncic looked like the superstar version of himself, eviscerating the Nuggets defense with a barrage of contested threes and otherworldly passes.

Meanwhile, Redick's game plan of consistently swarming Jokic with several defenders worked out for the most part, as the reigning league MVP was held to just 11 points on the evening.

Are the Lakers legitimate contenders?

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Los Angeles certainly looked like legitimate contenders for the NBA title on Saturday evening, as Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Austin Reaves, and Rui Hachimura all scored north of 20 points, and the team's defense turned in perhaps its most impressive performance of the season.

Doncic appeared much more confident in his new Lakers threads than he had in his first few games with his new team, and Los Angeles hit the Nuggets with a barrage of three pointers, many of which were created off of the elite playmaking of Doncic and LeBron James.

The win figures to put recent puzzling losses to the Utah Jazz and Charlotte Hornets firmly in the rearview mirror and should give the Lakers some confidence as they set to embark on what is undoubtedly going to be the toughest portion of their 2024-25 schedule, with several back to backs over the next couple of weeks.

In any case, the Lakers will next take the floor on Tuesday evening at home against the Dallas Mavericks.