Lakers visit Warriors for NBA Cup play after beating the Clippers

A 16-point win without the league's leading scorer

The Lakers beat the Clippers 103-87 on Wednesday night, the second time in a week the two Los Angeles teams met, and they did it without the player who leads the NBA in scoring. Luka Doncic sat out with back tightness on the second night of the Lakers' first back-to-back of the season. Starting forward Ziaire Williams also missed the game with a sore left foot.

Coach JJ Redick said both decisions were precautionary, according to the game report. That framing is the one the team has used for load management before, and it fits the schedule: the Lakers played in Portland on Tuesday night, lost 136-129, and then traveled down the freeway to face the Clippers.

Why the rest made sense

Doncic is averaging 36.0 points per game and scored 41 against Portland the night before the Clippers game. He has won two of the past three scoring titles, but availability has been the recurring question: he has not played more than 70 games in a season since his rookie year in 2018-19, and a hamstring injury in early April ended his season before the Lakers' playoff run.

The Lakers have had him for 121 regular-season games since the 2025 trade and he has played 96 of them. Sitting him for one night in October, against a team the Lakers had already beaten by eight points the previous Friday, is a decision about the season rather than about the matchup. The cost only becomes a problem if the game is close, and it was not.

The decision also says how the Lakers plan to use him. Since the trade, the team has built its offense around a player who has missed roughly a fifth of its games, and the response has been to manage the schedule rather than pretend the absences will not happen. Resting him in October is cheaper than losing him in April, and the injury history is the justification.

Six players in double figures

Quentin Grimes scored 23 points, Collin Sexton added a season-high 21 off the bench, Austin Reaves had 16 and Matisse Thybulle 15. Sexton and Thybulle each made four three-pointers. Six Lakers finished in double figures, which is the part of the box score that answers the obvious question about replacing 36 points.

None of those lines is a like-for-like replacement for Doncic. The Lakers did not ask one player to run the offense the way he does; they spread the shots and got a bench contribution that would have been useful even with him on the floor. That is a smaller claim than 'the Lakers are better without him,' and it is the only one the game supports.

The second quarter, then the answer

The Lakers took control in the second quarter, outscoring the Clippers 31-6 in a stretch that included 16 consecutive points, and led 56-38 at halftime. Six different Lakers scored in that quarter, led by Reaves with nine.

The Clippers made a run to open the third, outscoring the Lakers 12-2 to pull within seven. The Lakers closed the quarter on a 27-15 spurt, with Sexton scoring 11 straight points that included back-to-back three-pointers for an 85-65 lead. A team missing its leading scorer needs that kind of answer, and it got one from the bench. The run did not last.

The run also showed why the Lakers can afford to rest Doncic in October. A bench unit that can produce an 11-point individual burst in a close third quarter is the difference between load management and surrender.

The Clippers gave the ball away again

The Clippers turned the ball over 24 times, after 26 in each of their previous two games, both losses. Rookie Keaton Wagler scored a career-high 21 points off the bench to lead them, and they were without starting forward Rui Hachimura because of left quad tightness, playing against his former team.

The turnover pattern is the part of this game that is not about the Lakers' absences. A team that gives away the ball roughly 25 times a night will lose most games regardless of who is on the other bench. The Clippers are 1-3 and have now lost three in a row, including two to the Lakers within a week.

What the win does and does not show

The Lakers are 4-1, and the win is a real one against a team that had beaten them the previous week by a smaller margin. It also came with the caveat built into the schedule: the Clippers were short-handed and turnover-prone, and one October game is a weak test of how a team plays without its best player for a month.

Both teams open NBA Cup group play on Friday: the Lakers at Golden State, the Clippers at Minnesota. Our look at the Lakers-Warriors opener covers the earlier meeting between those teams, the NBA Cup explainer sets out how the group dates work, and the Clippers' arena opener covers their home floor. Friday will say more about both teams than Wednesday did. A 4-1 start with one scheduled absence is not proof of depth, but it is the version of the season the Lakers have planned for.