Lakers Teammates Ambush Luka Doncic With Ice Bath After 50-Point Debut
Luka Doncic jumped out of his chair and redirected teammates toward Austin Reaves to dodge an ice bath ambush after his 50-point Lakers debut.
Luka Doncic survived 51 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday. The ice bath was a different story.
After Doncic led the Lakers to a 142-130 win, coach JJ Redick gathered the locker room and announced that the performance marked Doncic's first 50-point game as a Laker. The room barely had time to process the milestone before Jarred Vanderbilt and Austin Reaves were already moving. The two teammates rushed Doncic with a post-game ice bath, the kind of cold-plunge initiation that has become a fixture of recovery culture in professional sports.
Doncic's escape was immediate and shameless. He jumped out of his chair, pivoted the attention squarely onto Reaves and pointed to Reaves's 5,000-point milestone as reason enough for the ice bath to find a different target. It worked. Doncic slipped the ambush entirely, leaving Reaves holding the bucket, so to speak.
The Lakers' official X account posted the clip on March 13 with a simple caption: "No ice bath for Luka 😂" The video spread quickly, a rare window into the locker-room chemistry building around this particular Lakers roster.
That chemistry has been producing results. Reaves, the same teammate Doncic threw under the bus, finished the Bulls game with 30 points, five rebounds and seven assists. On the season, Reaves is averaging 23.9 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.5 assists while shooting 50.0 percent from the floor and 38 percent from three. Doncic, for his part, is averaging 32.9 points, 7.9 rebounds and 8.5 assists while shooting 47.5 percent.
The win improved Los Angeles to 41-25, good for fourth place in a Western Conference race tight enough that the Lakers still trail the San Antonio Spurs in second by seven games. The Bulls game extended a stretch that already included back-to-back wins over the New York Knicks on March 8 and the Minnesota Timberwolves on March 10.
The cold water will find Doncic eventually. At this rate of performance, his teammates will have plenty more reasons to try.
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