After their 108-102 win Sunday against the LA Clippers, the Los Angeles Lakers are now the second seed in the Western Conference.

Not only are they 8-2 in their last 10 games, but they also have won six straight. Only the league-leading Cleveland Cavaliers have a longer winning streak.

Things are heating up at just the right time for the Lakers. Luka Dončić is finding his feet, and LeBron James continues to defy Father Time whenever he steps onto the hardwood. After a 17-point effort Sunday against the Clippers, James now has 49,999 career points (regular season and playoffs combined). His next bucket will make him the first player in NBA history to eclipse 50,000 points for a career. The Lakers host the New Orleans Pelicans Tuesday night.

On Monday’s episode of “NBA Daily,” Dave DuFour, Es Baraheni and Zena Keita discussed how LeBron has thrived in his new role since Luka’s arrival.

A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on YouTube below or in the “NBA Daily” podcast feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

DuFour: The Lakers are the two seed somehow and have had a crazy couple of months. Lebron James turned 40 years old. … I’ve got a birthday coming up soon, and I’ll tell you guys when you get to be a certain age, you want to prove things to yourself on all these birthdays. I think LeBron turned 40 years old and he said, “You know what? I’m still a top-five player in this league.” And he’s playing like it on both ends of the court. The Lakers survived a comeback from the Clippers, even though it got a little sketchy for them. But they picked up two wins over the rival Clippers, and these teams are going in opposite directions. But the Lakers are to the moon now that they’re the two seed.

Keita: The addition of Luka Dončić … I wouldn’t call it night and day, because they were already at dusk, but now they’re at night officially (laughs). They were rolling already, and they’ve just been adding to that. It was crazy to watch Luka consistently get into pick-and-roll situations where Ivica Zubac ended up on him against the Clippers. I was thinking, “Tyronn Lue, Jeff Van Gundy, all season we’ve been talking about this defense from the Clippers. What is going on?” But Luka was just able to take advantage of those situations and become the creator that LeBron was for them before he joined the team. It’s been really cool to see LeBron jell into this role where he doesn’t have to do as much. Luka has been the orchestrator and producer out on the floor for the Lakers.

DuFour: Yeah, LeBron has been able to be a play finisher so much with Luka out there, he’s leaking out all the time. Es, it reminds me of the Miami years where he had some of those crazy efficient seasons because he was cutting to the basket, and he was shooting a lot of layups. Here’s the thing, and this is the craziest part: LeBron added that last piece to his game. He became a knockdown 3-point shooter. He’s shooting 43 percent on the season, and statistically, his last two months have been better than that (2012-13) MVP season in Miami.

Baraheni: That’s incredible. It’s crazy to say that.

DuFour: This blows my mind. He’s scoring about the same amount of points, and he’s shooting the ball better. The defense is not the same level as then of course, but man, it’s ridiculous.

Baraheni: He’s making a case for himself to be either an All-Defensive Team member or 100 percent an All-NBA Team player.

DuFour: All-NBA First Team. LeBron James. Book it!

Keita: Yeah, I’m with that.

Baraheni: I don’t hate that at all. He does have a lot of competition. We just talked about a guy in Jalen Brunson who is making a name for himself right now for that award, too. But at the same time with LeBron, it’s the way that he’s doing it that makes it so impressive — and the team is winning. The other thing is, how real is this defense? We now have a two-month sample of it. Admittedly, a lot of that has to include Anthony Davis, but there is now a 15-game sample with no Anthony Davis and now with Luka. So, how real is this Lakers defense? That’s the interesting thing.

DuFour: We’re going to find out over the course of the next few weeks.

You can listen to full episodes of “NBA Daily” for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.

(Photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)