Sandro Mamukelashvili scored 23 points in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, two days after he scored 23 in Atlanta, and then told reporters he still doesn’t fully trust himself. “I hope I’ll get better. I hope I’ll start believing in myself as much as they do,” he said after the Lakers’ 123-112 win over the Bucks, as ESPN’s Dave McMenamin posted on X.
I appreciate the honesty. I also think he should catch up with the people who sign off on his minutes. The Lakers kept playing Mamukelashvili when the shot wasn’t falling, and now the shot is falling at exactly the moment they may need 30 minutes from him. As of Wednesday night, Austin Reaves is waiting on imaging for a left heel injury. That makes Mamukelashvili’s confidence a rotation issue as much as a personal one.
The win was the Lakers’ seventh straight and moved them to 11-2, the best record in the league, per the Associated Press recap on ESPN. The Bucks fell to 1-11. It was not a clean night, and the injury list matters more than the margin.
What the Lakers Know About Reaves So Far
Reaves landed awkwardly on a dunk attempt in the third quarter, stayed in the game after a timeout, then subbed himself out with 5:20 left in the period, McMenamin reported for ESPN. JJ Redick said the X-rays at the arena were negative, which Dan Woike also posted, and Redick ruled out an Achilles injury. Reaves will have imaging in Los Angeles on Thursday. “No update on AR until we’ll have imaging tomorrow,” Redick said.
Before he left, Reaves had 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting with five assists and three steals in 25 minutes, according to ESPN’s box score. He had also missed Monday’s win in Atlanta with an illness, as Thuc Nhi Nguyen reported in the Los Angeles Times. Quentin Grimes sat out his second straight game Wednesday with a sprained right finger, per the same report.
Luka Doncic turned his right ankle in the fourth quarter when Kyle Kuzma fouled him on a jumper. “I’m good,” Doncic said afterward, per ESPN. “Obviously painful a little bit, but I’ll be fine.” Collin Sexton needed stitches above his right eye after knocking heads with Ryan Rollins, Redick said.
So the Lakers are taking a banged-up backcourt into a three-day break before Sunday’s game in Phoenix. Whatever the imaging shows, the Lakers have already played one game this week without him, and Mamukelashvili’s 23 points were a big reason it didn’t feel like it.
Two Nights, Ten Threes, One Reasonable Question
The two-game line is loud. Against the Bucks, Mamukelashvili went 9-for-15 from the field and 5-for-8 from three in 26 minutes off the bench, with a plus-21, according to ESPN. He and Reaves each had 15 points by halftime, per the AP. In Atlanta on Monday, Basketball Reference’s game log has him at 7-for-13 and another 5-for-8 from deep in 32 minutes.
That is 46 points and 10 of 16 from three in two games. He won’t make 10 of every 16 threes all winter. The useful comparison is the other end of his season. Nguyen pointed out that Mamukelashvili went 11-for-35 from three over the first 11 games, which matches the Basketball Reference log. That is 31 percent.
Through those first 11 games, while the threes were missing, he still averaged about 23 minutes a night off the bench, per Basketball Reference. Redick didn’t bury him. The coaching staff kept him in the rotation through the cold start, which tells me the trust Mamukelashvili mentioned was never a reward for makes. It was there before the makes arrived.
Add the two big nights and his season sits at 21-for-51 from three, about 41 percent, across 13 games. For his real level, I would point him toward last season in Toronto instead, where Basketball Reference has him shooting 38.9 percent from three on 3.7 attempts a game across 80 appearances, scoring 11.2 points a night and finishing 10th in Sixth Man of the Year voting. The cold start looks like the outlier to me. The middle is a player who should take the open three without a second thought.
Why His Doubt Makes Sense, and Why It’s Out of Date
I understand where the quote comes from. McMenamin framed it around how Mamukelashvili’s career started, and the career page explains a lot. Indiana drafted him 54th overall in 2021. He spent his first season and part of his second in Milwaukee, the building he just torched, then moved to San Antonio and spent parts of three seasons there, mostly in a small role, per Basketball Reference. Toronto was the first place he played 80 games. A player who spent years fighting for a spot learns to treat every bad night as evidence.
That habit made sense then. It doesn’t fit the Lakers now. Their rotation has a reserve big who can stretch the floor, and Redick has shown with his minutes that the job is Mamukelashvili’s. We argued earlier this season that Mamukelashvili should play beside Walker Kessler rather than only behind him, and the last two games strengthen that case. A big man who draws his defender out to the arc gives Doncic and Kessler more room to work, and a defender guarding Mamukelashvili can’t wander into the paint if he’s hitting five threes a night.
What I want from him is plain. When the ball swings to him above the break and his man is closing late, shoot it. When the closeout is hard, attack it and make the next pass, the way he and Sexton shared the work in Atlanta. Hesitating is the only wrong answer. A pump fake into a contested two because he isn’t sure he belongs is how a 5-for-8 player becomes a 1-for-3 player in a hurry.
What Phoenix Should Look Like
If Reaves can’t go Sunday, the Lakers lose their second-best creator and a lot of their scoring. Doncic can’t absorb all of it, and he shouldn’t try on an ankle he just turned. The minutes have to come from several places: Sexton when his stitches allow, Ziaire Williams, Matisse Thybulle, and a bigger share for Mamukelashvili.
I would give him 28 to 30 minutes in that scenario and let him play through a miss or two. The guard depth gets thin fast without Reaves and Grimes, so the Lakers need a forward who can score without a play called for him. Right now that is Mamukelashvili.
Kessler put up 10 and 11 in Milwaukee, his seventh double-double in eight games according to the Times, and summed up the trip afterward: “We’re all ready to go home.” Fair enough. The Lakers get a few days to heal and wait on Reaves’ imaging. Mamukelashvili gets a few days to accept what his coach already decided weeks ago: he belongs on the floor, and the open shot is his to take.