“Tonight at Milwaukee, Luka Doncic scored 45 points. He had 29 by halftime. He had a hot streak from 3 in the first half in which he scored 10 straight points, and he wound up making five out of nine 3s in the first half, and then he went cold for a stretch, and most of his points felt like empty calories.

The Los Angeles Lakers return home against the Phoenix Suns following a road trip that saw them go 0-4 and drop to fifth place in the Western Conference standings. The good news for the Lakers though

Luka Doncic sat out the Los Angeles Lakers' 131-126 loss at Denver on Friday night, cheering on his scrappy, short-handed teammates who nearly pulled off a shocker without four starters. Doncic joined LeBron James on the Lakers' lengthy list of unavailable players after scoring 45 points a night earlier in a loss at Milwaukee.