One concern for the Los Angeles Lakers down the stretch of this season was the team’s chemistry, or the lack thereof. Due to the number of moves made at the trade deadline, this group of players didn’t have a ton of time to gel together and often times a lack of chemistry can hurt a team in the postseason. But after dispatching the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs, Austin Reaves believes the team has never been closer.
The Lakers put on a dominant performance in the closeout game at home, keeping the home crowd on their feet throughout the night in their 40-point win. When asked for one word to describe the Lakers after the win, Reaves didn’t hesitate with his answer.
“Together would be the word,” Reaves said after Friday night’s win. “I think you can tell just by really what I was talking about. You can hold each other accountable, you can have tough conversations in game.
“If I come down and I miss DLo on a swing, swing, he can come to me and tell me to swing it and I’m not taking it any type of way because I know the next possession if the roles are reversed, then he’s gonna get off it and make the extra pass and really just play the right way. So that’s really it, everybody is really connected on the court, off the court. It’s just a group of guys that enjoy being around one another.”
You can definitely tell just by watching the Lakers during the game that they have grown close even in this short time together. The bench is always standing and going crazy for every play and no one takes anything personally during these conversations that happen on the court.
Where that connection really shows for the Lakers is on the defensive end and Reaves said the team was locked in from the beginning to ensure the series didn’t go back on the road.
“We didn’t want to go back to Memphis, to say the least,” Reaves added. “We wanted to end it here tonight on our home court. So we were super locked in. From film this morning, you could tell there was a sense of urgency on that side of the ball. And I remember I think it was late in the third, I missed a rotation, I think we were up 30 at that point, the first person I see is Bron and he’s looking at me like ‘we ain’t doing that, you got to get there.’
“And that’s the attention to detail that we needed. I messed up and I needed to be held accountable, so it’s just those little things that when you have a group of guys that you can look at someone and be like ‘you messed up. That’s your rotation, that’s your boxout’ and nobody takes it too seriously, just take the message for what it is and learn from it is special and that will take you a long way.”
That energy, effort and accountability is what allows the Lakers to truly shut teams down on the defensive end and ultimately why they now find themselves in the second round of the playoffs.
Mutual interest between Lakers and Austin Reaves in free agency
Austin Reaves has been a revelation for the Lakers since the trade deadline and that has continued in the playoffs. The young guard will be a restricted free agent this offseason and one Western Conference executive believes he will have a lot of suitors this summer.
But there remains mutual interest between Reaves and the Lakers to get a deal done. Reaves reiterated his desire to stay with the team going forward while general manager Rob Pelinka called Reaves the exact type of player the Lakers want to keep building with.
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