Most are pointing to the Los Angeles Lakers’ failures at the free throw line in the fourth quarter as the reason for their loss to the Orlando Magic on Thursday night. Austin Reaves missed two and LeBron James missed one in the final minutes, but it was Anthony Davis missing 3-of-4 in the final 27 seconds that kept the door open for the Magic to steal the win on a game-winning triple from Franz Wagner.
It was an obviously frustrating loss for the Lakers and their first home defeat of the year. After the game, Reaves didn’t have any explanation on why the Lakers missed those free throws.
“We missed them. That’s really it,” Reaves said.
As far as Reaves is concerned, the Lakers just didn’t convert when they needed to. But when it comes to Davis, however, Reaves defended his superstar teammate and has lost no confidence in the superstar big man, saying he would go right back to him in the same situation the next time it comes up.
“Like you said, he wasn’t the only one who missed them,” Reaves noted. “I missed them, he missed them, Bron missed one. As a collective, we didn’t shoot free throws good in the fourth quarter. That’s ultimately the reason we lost the game. Obviously he does so much for our team that two missed free throws aren’t gonna change anything. We’ll throw him the ball in the same spot next game if it comes down to it and we have the confidence in him to make them.”
Reaves has regularly spoken up for Davis over the past couple of seasons, constantly stating that he doesn’t feel like the big man doesn’t get enough credit for all that he means for this team. That message remained the same following this loss and Davis has proven he will come through for the Lakers far more often than not.
As for the loss itself, Reaves, like basically everyone on the Lakers, was still frustrated at the outcome but knows they have to move forward from it.
“A loss is a loss,” Reaves said. “Yeah, some games you sometimes don’t have a chance of winning and just play bad basketball. Tonight, like you said, we put ourselves in a position to win the game and didn’t so obviously it’s frustrating. But it goes in the loss column and you move on.”
The last thing the Lakers can afford to do is dwell on this defeat as it is still a long season. The Lakers will have plenty of other close games and Reaves and Davis will make sure to do everything possible to ensure the outcome will be different next time.
Lakers’ Austin Reaves has been begging Anthony Davis to shoot more 3-pointers
Without a doubt Anthony Davis has been the best player on the Lakers all season long and one area where he has made a great leap is with his 3-point shooting, something Austin Reaves has been wanting for many years now.
Reaves recently said he has been ‘begging’ for Davis to shoot more 3s, noting how it greatly improves the spacing on the court, making it much easier to attack the paint and get easy buckets at the rim or kick out for open shots.
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