Luka torches Heat for 60 points as Lakers win 8th straight

Luka Doncic scored 60 points on 18-of-30 shooting as the Los Angeles Lakers topped the Miami Heat 134-126 to claim their eighth straight victory.

Doncic's 60 points match the second-highest scoring game of his career, behind only his 73-point performance against the Atlanta Hawks in 2024 as a member of the Dallas Mavericks.

He's now amassed 100 total points in back-to-back nights, following his 40-point outing in Wednesday's win over the Houston Rockets. The production marked Doncic's 39th game with at least 30 points this season, the most by a Laker in a campaign in the last 20 years.

"His teammates are enjoying it just as much as him right now. ... This is a special run he's on," Lakers head coach JJ Redick told ESPN's Dave McMenamin after the game.

"You see everybody celebrating on the bench, it's like, it shows that we care a lot about each other," Doncic told McMenamin. "And that's what great teams do. Just makes my heart happy seeing them celebrate my 60-point game."

LeBron James also had a stellar performance, recording 19 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists for his second triple-double of the season - the 124th of his career. With the contest, James made his 1,611th career regular-season appearance, tying Boston Celtics icon Robert Parish for the NBA record.

"(LeBron's) a psycho. ... In the same way that Luka willed it for us, LeBron willed it for us tonight," Redick told Spectrum SportsNet's Mike Trudell.

The Lakers are now 10 games back of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the top spot in the Western Conference and have won 11 of 12 contests since a three-game skid in late February.