With their victory over the Dallas Mavericks, the Los Angeles Lakers clinched a top-6 spot in the Western Conference ensuring they won’t be part of the Play-In Tournament. While the focus on Wednesday was rightfully on Luka Doncic in his return to Dallas, it has been Austin Reaves who has turned a lot of heads over the past couple months.
While most expected Reaves to take a step back following the Lakers’ acquisition of Doncic, the opposite has occurred. Since the All-Star break, Reaves has averaged 22.2 points, 4.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists while shooting 47.8% from the field and 40.2% from 3-point range as the Lakers have turned into one of the top contenders in the Western Conference.
The playoffs in the West are going to be an absolute battle regardless of the matchups, but Reaves has the utmost confidence in the Lakers to make a run. After the win in Dallas, Reaves said that with Doncic and LeBron James leading the way, and the talent of the supporting cast, the Lakers have shown just how dangerous they will be come playoff time, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“High, very high. We really believe in what we got here. With the way we went and performed the first game against the best team in the NBA, just shows what we can do. Even that second game, it’s a back and forth game, a really good game until the Luka ejection and then it kind of just took the air out of us and we didn’t respond in the right way. But with the talent we have, we obviously have two guys in Bron and Luka that can dominate the game in so many ways. If I was a coach, it would be very tough to prepare for those two and then the supporting cast that we have. We got guys that do the dirty work, shoot the ball extremely well. We got a good overall team.”
Having to game plan for both Luka and LeBron is tough enough, but then with Reaves also such a capable scorer and creator it becomes nearly impossible to defend as at least two of the three are almost always going to have a good scoring night. And if Dorian Finney-Smith, Gabe Vincent or Rui Hachimura are hitting the open looks being created for them, the Lakers are virtually unstoppable.
There remains some questions on the defensive end, especially with the Lakers’ lack of true rim protection, but they have shown that they can defend at a high level regardless and head coach JJ Redick does an excellent job of scheming up ways to limit the opposition. The Lakers have shown they can beat any team on any night and going into the postseason, will undoubtedly be one of the toughest outs in the West.
Austin Reaves glad Luka Doncic is on the Lakers
What Luka Doncic did in his return to Dallas was nothing short of spectacular as he poured in 45 points, eight rebounds, six assists and four steals and Austin Reaves was truly impressed.
Reaves spoke about how impressive it was for Luka to put on a performance like that with how emotional everything was while adding that he expected it because of the type of competitor Doncic is. Reaves added that he is just glad Luka is a member of the Lakers now.
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