The picture is an AI-generated illustration, not a photograph from the match
Reaves called himself a lucky basketball player after scoring 43 against a Pistons team with one of the better defenses in the league. Walker Kessler, who had 12 points and 16 rebounds, disagreed: the Lakers win whether the night belongs to Doncic or to him.
Filling in for the league's hottest player
The absence was the story going in: Doncic came into Sunday averaging 45 points over a four-game winning run that had left the Lakers at 8-2.
Reaves finished with 43 points on 14-of-27 shooting, 4-of-6 from three and a perfect 11-of-11 from the free-throw line, adding five rebounds, four assists and one turnover in 36 minutes.
He came into the game averaging 23.0 points during that stretch, so the request was not a miracle, only that the second option become the first for one night.
Reaves played two seasons at Wichita State and one at Oklahoma before declaring for the 2021 draft, where the Pistons planned to take him 42nd; he declined so he could sign as a free agent with the Lakers, and Detroit moved on to Isaiah Livers, who played 130 NBA games and now plays in Japan.
Kessler pushed back on the luck talk: with Doncic on the floor Reaves takes a secondary role, and 43 points made the case that it is a choice, not a ceiling.
109-104 and a terrible shot that stayed up
The Lakers led by as many as 26 points in the second quarter, held the advantage for 97 percent of the game and never trailed, with no lead changes recorded.
Detroit closed to 109-104 with under a minute to play after the Lakers could not get their offense into rhythm, setting up the final sequence.
The dagger was not designed: a flipped-up, one-legged three from Reaves that he described afterward as a lucky attempt that simply fell.
Detroit made 19 of 48 three-pointers against the Lakers' 11 of 28 and finished with 27 assists and 10 steals, but never led at any point.
Notably, Daniss Jenkins scored 31 points off the bench on 8-of-15 three-point shooting with five rebounds and four assists, and Kevin Huerter added 24 points and five blocks.
The rest of the line
The second-chance work was Los Angeles' quiet edge: Kessler's 16 rebounds included seven offensive, and the Lakers scored 58 points in the paint.
Two 17-point nights from Williams and Sexton, both arriving off the bench, were the next scoring lines after Reaves' 43.
Cade Cunningham finished with 14 points on 6-of-15 shooting, eight assists and four turnovers for a minus-15 rating.
Detroit owned eight offensive rebounds from Reed and 11 from Thompson and still lost the glass by a single board.
In the wider picture, the Lakers improved to 9-2 and travelled to Atlanta for the Monday-night game that followed, while the Pistons dropped to 6-3 and hosted Washington the same evening.
Editor's take: The story of the night is a role switch: a 23-point-per-game second option had to become a first option for three hours.
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