Austin Reaves was very honest about how he felt he performed in the Los Angeles Lakers’ disappointing Game 1 loss, but the guard looked much better in Game 2. While he still struggled with his 3-point shot, he was otherwise solid finishing with 16 points, five rebounds and five assists in the Lakers’ nine-point win.
More important was the Lakers’ defense overall as they held the Timberwolves to just 85 points on 38% shooting and Reaves felt it wasn’t a matter of a change in game plan, but simply the Lakers playing hard.
“No, I just thought we played hard.,” Reaves said about the Lakers defense. “I spoke about how they play every single day, regular season, postseason. They play hard as shit. And if you don’t meet that physicality, the physicality then you change the result. So that was, emphasis going into the night was, play hard.”
That was the biggest issue most had after Game 1 was that the Lakers didn’t match the effort and physicality of the Timberwolves and Reaves pulled no punches in saying they got punked, but responded the right way.
“I think it just goes back to the other night when we basically got punked,” Reaves said. “Let’s just call a spade to spade. They came in here Game 1 and punked us. You can tell from the energy in the locker room after the game that nobody was worried about what we have. We just had to compete every single possession. Like you said, we had really good practice yesterday. That kind of just ensured where the headspace was and the knowing of what we were going to have to do to come out here and get a win.”
It certainly wasn’t pretty for the Lakers, but the most important thing was getting a win. With the offense stalling in the fourth the Lakers had to rely on their defense and Reaves drawing a charge late was simply a matter of the guard doing whatever was necessary to get a win.
“I thought it was huge because the offensive playmaking in the fourth quarter was not what it usually is,” Reaves said of the charge. “I made a couple of really bad plays. I had a couple of turnovers. In those situations, you just got to lay it all out on the line and do whatever you can do to help your team win. In the playoffs, like I spoke about, you win on the smallest margins. You lose on the smallest margins. In a play like that, in that situation, everybody on our team is ready to sacrifice their body to get a win.”
In the playoffs, how you get a win doesn’t matter, only the end result. Reaves put his body on the line and the rest of the Lakers will do the same and they will need to as this tough, physical Timberwolves team will not be backing down.
Lakers coach JJ Redick praises Rui Hachimura for performance in Game 2
Rui Hachimura’s numbers won’t stand out, but his performance for the Lakers in Game 2 did not go unnoticed by head coach JJ Redick, especially considering the shot he took to the face in the first quarter.
Redick called Hachimura a ‘warrior’ and said he did a lot of good things for the Lakers on both ends of the court that won’t show up in the box score, but were crucial to the team’s success.
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