LOS ANGELES — With a little more than five minutes to play on Friday night, the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Lakers were locked in a game where the largest lead for more than three minutes was one point.
Grizzlies backup center Jock Landale tried posting up Lakers guard Marcus Smart, and Landale wound up losing the ball to Jake LaRavia. Luka Dončić tried to find streaking Jaxson Hayes for a long-distance alley-oop, but the pass was so bad that the ball hit off the rim as if Dončić was attempting a shot.
Fortunately for the Lakers, Jarred Vanderbilt controlled the loose ball, and it became official: The Lakers were in clutch time for the first time since Dec. 18 at Utah.
The NBA defines clutch time as the minutes when a game is within 5 points in the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime. No team had played fewer games (10) or fewer minutes (24) in clutch time than the Lakers this season.
However, every NBA team has lost at least three clutch-time games, while the Lakers entered their first game of 2026 with an undefeated 10-0 record in clutch time.
You see, the Lakers might get blown out in games, especially against title contenders. And the Lakers might blow big leads — the Grizzlies overcame separate deficits of 13 points in the first quarter and 15 points in the second quarter. And Thursday’s game was uncharted territory for the Lakers, as it was the first time all season one of their games was tied through three quarters.
But once it got to clutch time? A formality — Lakers win. And that’s what happened, with the Lakers outlasting the Grizzlies 128-121 to improve their record to 21-11.
In games that don’t feature clutch time, the Lakers are 10-11. And despite their overall winning record, the Lakers have been outscored by six points this season. However, winning is most important. It’s better to be the Lakers than the Golden State Warriors, a team that has outscored opponents by 36 points this season but has 11 clutch-time losses and is 4 1/2 games behind the Lakers in the standings.
There’s no real sample size here to draw sweeping conclusions for what works for the Lakers in clutch time. We’re talking about only 26 minutes here. And it’s not like any team spends a lot of minutes in clutch time. Nor do you want to, as an abundance of clutch-time games is not the mark of a championship team.
The Miami Heat played the most clutch-time minutes last regular season at 195, and they were awful in those games, losing a league-high 28 of 42.
However, the team with the next-most clutch-time losses last season were the Minnesota Timberwolves, who went 20-26, only to turn around and beat the Lakers in all three clutch-time games in the 2025 Western Conference quarterfinals. The Lakers had the seventh-best clutch-time record in the regular season in 2024-25, at 23-16 in 119 minutes.
Has there been a common thread for the Lakers in clutch time this season?
“I don’t know what the updated numbers are,” said Lakers head coach JJ Redick. “Our defense has been really good in the clutch.”
Again, small sample size. But the Lakers’ clutch-time defense last season ranked 20th in the NBA. This season, the Lakers are 25th overall, while allowing 117.7 points per 100 possessions, the league’s best clutch-time defense, and a stifling 89.8 points per 100 possessions.
Lakers opponents have made only 15 of 44 field goals (34.1 percent), 5 of 21 3s (23.8 percent), and 9 of 14 free throws (64.3 percent) in 26 minutes of clutch time this season.
It’s like when a win is within reach for the Lakers, and they need to play defense for a few minutes, all of a sudden, they have the personnel, effort and urgency to get stops.
“Obviously, when the game gets tight, you can press up, play better defense,” said Dončić, who scored a game-high 34 points and made more free throws (17 of 20) than the entire Grizzlies team (15 of 23). “Trying to get it to 48 minutes.”
It helps to have Smart, who had one of his better all-around games of the season Friday night. The Lakers outscored the Grizzlies by 18 points in Smart’s 34 minutes, and Smart was everywhere. Smart had season-highs of eight rebounds and seven assists to go with 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field, including 3 of 6 from 3, a steal and a block.
“Just my ability to create for others, and my ability to create for myself,” Smart said of his performance. “But just always making the right play. I have a good IQ of the game, and allowing me to use my size and my skill set, because I can see the floor just as good as anybody out there as well. And making the right play.
“So for me to have the ball in my hands definitely is good for this team, and just gotta find out ways to do it within our offense.”
With Hayes and Smart in the game with five minutes to play, the Lakers blitzed Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant. Smart had his hands up as Morant tried to find Jaylen Wells on the opposite wing. Smart deflected the ball, and the Grizzlies never had the ball down by one possession again.
“I thought just down the stretch, once we got Jaxson back in there, we were able to execute a couple blitzes, got some turnovers,” Redick said. “Just getting multiple stops in a row. But I know they scored a lot, and they only got credited for 20 fast-break points, 27 points off our turnovers. Their early offense, they probably had 70 of their points there.
“So I thought when we were able to set our defense, it was one of our better defensive games we’ve had in a long time in the half court.”
That Lakers stop led to a long possession that didn’t end when LaRavia missed a 3. LaRavia got his own miss, and Dončić set up shop again. Dončić got to the paint, where Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr. helped off the strong side corner, leaving Vanderbilt wide open.
Vanderbilt’s reputation is that of a non-shooter, but he has made at least one 3 in seven straight games. Dončić passed out of the paint to Vanderbilt, who made it eight consecutive games with at least one 3.
“It’s very key that he’s back in the lineup, and we love that,” said LeBron James of Vanderbilt, who played only once in a 10-game stretch from Nov. 18 through Dec. 10. “But we also need him to knock down a corner shot, occasionally.
“Teams are not gonna guard him. They kinda disrespect him over there, not even contesting the shots. And he’s put a lot of work in it every day at practice to shoot that same shot.”
Another strong defensive sequence involving Smart came with just under three minutes left, with the Lakers leading 116-112. The Grizzlies put both James and Dončić in the action, with Wells handling the ball and Santi Aldama helping to force a switch from Dončić on Wells to James.
Wells got to the paint, but didn’t pursue the rim because of Smart, who ranks tied for third in charges drawn this season with nine. Wells’ floater missed, allowing Hayes to end the possession with a rebound.
Following that key stop, Dončić got to the paint once again, late in the shot clock. This time, James was covered on the strong-side corner by Grizzlies rookie Cedric Coward. However, Aldama helped on the strong-side wing. The pass from Dončić was not perfect, but LaRavia was able to beat the shot-clock buzzer, formally ending the clutch-time portion of Friday night’s game for good.
Finally, James subbed in for Vanderbilt and, like Dončić, was able to find one of his non-star teammates for a dagger 3. The Grizzlies trailed by three possessions with just under 90 seconds to go, and realistically could not allow any more points.
They doubled Dončić to get the ball out of his hands. James was the next pass over for Dončić. While the Grizzlies recovered, James froze the defense with a fake inside, leaving the Grizzlies with two defenders on Hayes and LaRavia. That opened up Smart for an open 3 that capped an 8-2 run and put the Lakers up double digits.
The Lakers will host the Grizzlies again on Sunday with a chance to get back-to-back wins for the first time in two weeks. Chances are, if the game is close late, they’ll win again.
“We made some big-time plays offensively, we were sharing the ball, guys made some big-time shots,” said James, who scored 31 points, marking the first time since March that he and Dončić each scored 30 points in the same game. “Mentioned Vando’s 3. Jake’s 3 on the other side of their bench, the end of the shot clock. Jax had a big-time dunk down the middle.
“So those are key moments. And then defensively, we was able to get a couple of stops, get a couple rebounds, that allowed us to kind of start pushing the lead up.”