With so many key rotation players out, the Los Angeles Lakers were counting on Austin Reaves to lead the way against the Denver Nuggets and as is usually the case in those situations, he came through in a big way.
Despite it being the second night of a back-to-back, Reaves finished with 37 points, eight rebounds, 13 assists and four steals in 39 minutes. He was masterful for the Lakers, but unfortunately they came up short as the Nuggets escaped with a 131-126 win to hand L.A. its fourth straight loss.
After the game, Reaves was happy with the Lakers’ play although admitted they did not execute well enough late, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“You always want to win. Regardless of who you take the floor with, we feel like we could win and we went and put ourselves in a good position to do that. I missed a middy with probably 28 seconds left to go up two and they came down and kind of went to what they went to the last two minutes. Dalton got on the high side because we were kind of fronting Jokic and kind of walked him up and tailed him into the screen and Jamal got a wide open 3 and made it. Losing sucks, but I’m happy with what these guys in the locker room did tonight.”
Reaves believes a performance like this says a lot about the Lakers even though they went winless on their road trip:
“We went 0-4 so it’s a pretty bad trip. We played hard as shit, but like JJ said, a week ago everybody was like ‘Lakers in 5.’ So we don’t listen to any of it. We know when we’re fully healthy and got everyone on the team that we have a really good chance to beat anybody. So I just see this group coming together locked in on one common goal and that’s to win. Tonight I think was the biggest testament to that. Very shorthanded and went and played a really good basketball team with probably the best player in the world. Went toe-to-toe and had an opportunity to win it in the end. Just didn’t execute the last 50 seconds, so I guess that’s what you take away from it.”
Reaves has constantly risen to the occasion when the Lakers are missing key guys, and he will have to continue doing so to get through this rough patch of their schedule.
Austin Reaves explains why he played against Nuggets
With it being the second night of a back-to-back and the start of a six-game in eight-day stretch, the Lakers were missing six rotation players with LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Jaxson Hayes, Rui Hachimura, Dorian Finney-Smith and Gabe Vincent all out against the Nuggets.
Austin Reaves revealed postgame that he contemplated sitting as well but decided to give it a go for his team:
“Basketball is just fun. I’d be lying to you if I said that at some point between the Milwaukee game and last night when everybody was trying to figure out if they were playing or not, for a second I was like damn, we got how many rotation guys out, Bron, Jaxson, Rui, Doe, Gabe, Luka. It’s a lot of guys out. But they told me to go play so I went and played.”
Reaves has always prided himself on being an iron man a despite the Lakers missing so many guys, they nearly pulled off their best win of the season thanks to him.
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