The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets for the second straight time on Wednesday night. Then, they boarded a plane for South Beach as they played the Miami Heat on Thursday night. They didn’t land in Miami until 5:00 a.m. local time, quickly prompting Austin Reaves, LeBron James and Luka Doncic to be listed as questionable.
Despite all the fan frustration with load management, absolutely no one would have been upset if the Lakers’ stars decided to take the night off. Instead, all three played. Doncic dropped 60 points, James recorded a triple-double and Reaves tallied 18 points with a plus-13 showing in an eighth-straight Lakers win. After the game, Reaves talked about what it’s like to see Doncic and James go to work the way they did.
“It’s fun to watch,” Reaves said on Spectrum SportsNet. “I have one of the best seats to greatness every single night, and watching those guys do what they do.”
Reaves then talked about what went into the decision to play against Miami despite all the reasons to take the game off. He said it all came down to following LeBron’s lead.
“It goes a long way. When he said he was playing, I was like I can’t let a 41-year-old play and I don’t play,” Reaves said. “So I signed up to play, so did Luka, and we went and grinded a win out. That’s not an easy one, especially with the pace that team plays at. But the second half, especially that third quarter, we played some good basketball and then down the stretch took over the game.”
At one point early in the game, the Lakers appeared to be playing with tired legs, which was understandable. Again though, Reaves followed James’ lead to make sure that didn’t affect them.
“I remember there was a timeout early and JJ came over and was like, ‘I know y’all are tired,’ and Bron was like, ‘I’m not tired.’ So I was like, ‘I’m not tired either.’ So yeah, follow the leader; that goes along with the belief that we’re talking about.”
It took a little while for the Lakers’ Big 3 to all see the floor together. It took them even longer to get on the same page on the court despite great off-court friendships. But the month of March has been better than anything L.A. could have expected from this big three.
LeBron has sacrificed his scoring opportunities to become an highly efficient and hustle-first role player. Luka has been dominating games, and Reaves has been the perfect No. 2 option despite some poor shooting nights in the last three games.
LeBron James responds to people saying Lakers are better without him
It took James missing only three consecutive wins for people to start saying that the franchise was better off without him. But the five games since his return have emphatically proven how vital he can be to the team’s success and he responded to the negative commentary after L.A.’s eighth straight win.
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