The Los Angeles Lakers are one loss away from being eliminated in the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs. And if they lose on Saturday, it would be their second consecutive sweep elimination at the hands of the Denver Nuggets and their 12th straight loss to Nikola Jokic and company. Frustration has certainly been mounting for Austin Reaves and the Lakers, who feel as though they are out of chess moves.
L.A. has held double-digit leads in all three games of the series. In Game 2, they led by 20 in the second half before Denver stormed back and won at the buzzer courtesy of Jamal Murray. Reaves, Anthony Davis, LeBron James and D’Angelo Russell have all excelled at moments but fell short at others. And at a certain point, the question becomes if there is anything the Lakers can do to defeat the Nuggets.
Reaves was asked whether or not the 11-game losing streak has anything to do with coaching adjustments — or a lack thereof — and if L.A. can do anything to salvage the series.
“I think Denver is just beating us, to be honest,” Reaves said. “You can talk about adjustments. You can talk about this and that but at the end of the day, we got to go put our best foot forward in basketball games. We can talk about all the little you know everything else outside of the talks of everything, but at the end of the day you’ve got to man up and go win.”
Where the Lakers have particularly faltered is crunch time. L.A. is a minus-42 for the series in the second half, and that is largely because the Lakers offense stalls completely in the big moments.
“It’s super frustrating,” Reaves said. “Like you said, I know after the trade deadline, even a little before that, our offense was clicking on all cylinders. We were outscoring people more than we were beating people with our defense, and like you said, other than tonight, which giving up 112 to that team is not bad. It’s actually a pretty good defensive game. But like you said, on offense, we struggled. It’s super frustrating. Losing sucks and that’s all anybody should care about in our locker room is us losing right now. There shouldn’t be anything else other than that. That’s it.”
Reaves, though, doesn’t feel any extra pressure knowing that the Lakers can build and lose leads with ease against the Nuggets.
“Nah, I don’t feel that. I don’t feel the need for like that, to be honest. If I knew the issue in those third quarters, I’d be the first one happy to fix that. Got to be better all around. Like I said, at the end of the day we got to man up.”
The Lakers remained confident heading into Game 3, and the hope is they can bring that mentality to a Game 4 even with the series all but over.
“Confident,” Reaves said of his mentality. “Obviously, losing the first two in Denver isn’t what you want to do. But in both of those games today, we felt like we obviously defended well enough to win those games.
“Offensively, like you said, we were struggling, but we were just thinking if we can put it together on both ends of the court, we could string together some wins here. Obviously, the offense wasn’t good at night. Super frustrating, but I thought we were well locked into what we were trying to do, and we just didn’t execute on the offensive end.”
The Lakers need to approach Game 4 as if the series can still be won. Otherwise, it is going to a hard exit to watch in L.A. Reaves is certainly going to face it that way, and the hope is that the rest of the roster follows suit.
LeBron James discusses pressure on Lakers
After Game 3, James was asked if the pressure of needing to be perfect or close to it to beat a team as good as the Nuggets is affecting some of his teammates, and he gave an honest answer.
“I don’t know. It’s the postseason. We’re professionals. You’re supposed to have anxiety and pressure, feel the pressure, that’s what it’s about,” James said. “That’s what the postseason is about. So I don’t know how to answer that question, I don’t know. I don’t know.”
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