LOS ANGELES — He may be wearing a different uniform and going against his old team, but Sandro Mamukelashvili — one of the NBA’s all-time good guys — was more than willing to provide a scouting report for his old team.

“Oh, that man is a (expletive) beast. Sorry for my language, but that's the only way you can describe it, man,” the former Raptor about his new co-worker with the Los Angeles Lakers. “Like passing, IQ, just tough shot maker. Like sometimes the stuff he does, it’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ But then, ‘wow’, you know?”

Yeah, the Toronto Raptors know. Everyone knows.

In his first season in Los Angeles as the singular star after the departure of LeBron James, Doncic is putting the NBA’s most decorated glamour franchise on his back and the rest of the league on notice.

The Raptors can attest.

Like at the end of the second quarter when the Lakers have the ball with 9.7 seconds left. The Raptors have Jamal Shead pressuring Doncic he brings the ball up and then after a screen, hands him off to Collin Murray-Boyles, who has the size to guard the burly six-foot-seven Laker, and the foot speed too.

But Doncic didn’t seem bothered by that tactic, or anything thing else.

Doncic sized up Murray-Boyles, gave him a couple of dribbles to hold him in place before stepping back and hitting a contested 30-footer.

It wasn’t even his toughest shot of the first half. That would be the three he hit over the out-stretched fingers of long-armed Scottie Barnes while falling out of bounds to his right that Doncic banked in off the top-corner of the backboard.

And that wasn’t the most notable indignity Doncic served up Barnes. In the third quarter the two stars got into a slappy, shovey disagreement, the referees bring an end to it by calling fouls on both. But that didn’t stop Barnes from going chest-to-chest with Doncic and that didn’t stop Doncic from backing the Raptors all-NBA defender into the paint and dropping a soft floater over him.

Barnes had a strong game, finishing with 29 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals, but he had nothing on the Lakers star.

It was that kind of night and........

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