LOS ANGELES – One of the Los Angeles Lakers’ big offseason acquisitions was guard Quentin Grimes. The six-year veteran was brought in as an additional ball-handler who can provide Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves with some relief in that aspect. And Grimes is no stranger to playing with Doncic. The pair were teammates briefly during the 2024-25 season with the Dallas Mavericks before Doncic was traded to the Lakers and Grimes to the Philadelphia 76ers.

Now reunited with the Lakers, Quentin Grimes is still adjusting to the team’s system and his new teammates. One of the ways he’s found how he can help the team is by following Luka Doncic’s lead and allowing that to help dictate when and where he needs to be aggressive on the court.

“It’s just a rhythm thing. Luka is on a crazy heater, doing stuff we ain’t seen ever in the NBA,” Grimes said following Lakers’ practice on Friday. “So you just got to pick your poison and find your spots out there and just try to be a relief for him for sure.”

Grimes has been sidelined for the last two games due to a finger injury, but he acknowledged after practice that he expected to be back in the Lakers’ lineup for the final game of their four-game trip on Sunday against the Phoenix Suns.

The 26-year-old has been coming off the bench this season, and is coming off a strong game in which he finished with 12 points and four assists in the team’s win against the Detroit Pistons to start the road trip. But Grimes has not only been tasked with being a scoring threat and ball-handler from the Lakers, but to be an impact defender as well.

While the team has gotten off to a strong start to the season, head coach JJ Redick wants the Lakers to become a top-ten defensive team. As it stands, they are 18th in opponents’ points per game (114.2) and 17th in defensive rating (114.7). That side of the floor is an area where Grimes can have a solid impact.

“[It’s] just reps. There’s a lot of new guys, a lot of new terminology, a lot of guys who haven’t played together before,” Grimes said. “It’s just getting the reps out, just knowing that getting the rotation down and getting those scrambles out the way and understanding the more reps you rep it out, the easier it’ll get when we play a really good team and kind of propel you to be a top-10 defensive team.”

Through 11 games played, Grimes is averaging 8.0 points, 2.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists with splits of 43.1 percent shooting from the field, 24.2 percent shooting from the 3-point line and 70.6 percent shooting from the free-throw line.

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To help get him back up to speed after two missed games, Grimes participated in the ‘stay ready’ games on Friday alongside the Lakers’ lower minutes players. It was his first real on-court action since the finger injury, and he wanted to see how it respond to contact.

The injury was on his shooting hand, but he did well during the stay ready games with his team picking up plenty of dubs.

“It felt really good. I had a really good day playing with a little tape over it to see how it felt for the first time,” Grimes said. “But it felt really good. We got a lot of wins in those games with me out there, so it felt really good.”