Getty The Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks will hold a scrimmage Thursday.
Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks will take on LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in one of 16 televised scrimmages coming at you from the NBA Bubble in Orlando.
The scrimmage starts at 6:30 p.m. ET. It will be broadcast on NBA TV (nationally), Spectrum SportsNet (locally in Lakers market) and Mavs.com.
Heavy may earn an affiliate commission if you sign up via a link on this page
If you don’t have cable and the Mavs.com option doesn’t work (it’s unclear if it will work for out-of-market viewers), you can also watch a live stream of the Lakers vs Mavericks scrimmage via a free trial of FuboTV.
On top of FuboTV’s main 97-channel package, you can include add-on bundles such as “Sports Plus” or “fubo Extra.” Both of those include NBA TV, and both can be included in a free seven-day trial:
Once signed up for FuboTV, you can watch a live stream of NBA TV’s broadcast of the Lakers vs Mavericks scrimmage on your computer via the FuboTV website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, or other supported device via the FuboTV app.
Lakers vs Mavericks Scrimmage Preview
NBA action returns for the first time since March with several televised scrimmages, which are meant to serve as a form of conditioning for players before the regular season resumes July 30. All action will take place sans fans in the stands, but Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said that he thinks the league has found a unique way to handle this.
“We saw the digital boards in their full operation mode,” Carlisle said this week. “There’s going to be pictures of actual fans on the digital boards. It will look like there are people in the arena. Those faces in actuality are people sitting in front of their computers at home watching the game being streamed on a computer … my understanding is they have the ability to affect the amount of noise made in terms of cheering somehow in their computer.”
Led by Doncic, who was averaging 28.7 points before action was halted, the Mavs could surprise some people if they stay healthy down the stretch. They will be without center Dwight Powell and guard Jalen Brunson, both of whom are recovering from Achilles and shoulder surgery, respectively. They will also be missing Courtney Lee, Willie Cauley-Stein, and guards Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Trey Burke.
As for the Lakers, they had an inter-squad scrimmage on Tuesday this week, but this will be the first non-team competition they’ve had since March. In an attempt to avoid injury by doing too much too fast, coach Frank Vogel has noted he doubts superstars LeBron James and Anthony Davis will play in all three of the team’s scrimmages before the season resumes — although they could both play in this scrimmage.
Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma, for one, thinks any action right now is better than nothing, but he also warns that things could get a bit sloppy: “We haven’t played basketball in four months so you can probably expect a lot of sloppiness, a lot of tired people. I wouldn’t look at this scrimmage as game one or anything. I don’t think the guys will get in their best shape until the playoffs,” Kuzma said.
Still, the Lakers are currently led by a man possessed, and Vogel says that he sees something in LeBron this year that just looks and feels different.
“Obviously it’s been great having LeBron on our side after years of going against him,” Vogel said about having one of the greatest players ever on his squad. “But in particular, when we get to the playoff environment, I’ve just seen how he is this year in some of the bigger regular-season games, how he’s more mentally locked in, more vocal, more making sure everybody else is locked in. And I anticipate that come playoff time, we’ll see that all being done at an enhanced level.”