Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves took a hard fall after being fouled by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on a drive to the basket late in the second quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night.
Reaves immediately fell to the ground and was in some serious pain. He was eventually able to get up and walk under his own power, staying in the game and making both free throws. He then asked to come out and went straight back to the locker room though where he remained until midway through the third quarter.
Reaves was luckily able to return and finished with 11 points, five rebounds and three assists in the Lakers’ loss to the Thunder.
It was still a scary moment though when he fell, and all of his teammates went over to make sure he was OK. Lakers rookie Dalton Knecht later explained why they did that.
“He’s our brother so when he went down hard, all of us went over there to make sure he was good. He came back, he’s tough. We’re glad that he’s OK,” Knecht said.
While Reaves was able to finish out the game, head coach JJ Redick expects his back to be sore given how hard the fall was.
“He made a play on the ball. That’s why I stopped dunking very early in my life,” Redick joked. “Clear that he couldn’t go in the first half. He’s tough as nails. I thought he moved fine. He wasn’t really in the flow of the game because of that and not getting to start this second half. He’ll be in some pain tomorrow. We’ll just have to kind of assess going forward.”
It remains to be seen if Reaves will be forced to miss any time as that will depend on how his body responds. He is as tough as they come though and wants to play every game so if it is up to him, it will be a short absence for the Lakers guard, if any at all.
Austin Reaves: Lakers trying to be more physical defensively
Part of the reason Austin Reaves got hurt was because the Lakers and Thunder were both playing extremely physical. This has been an area of emphasis for the Lakers lately as Reaves discussed their need to play that way to have success defensively.
“I think if you watch basketball for a long time, the teams that are ‘physical defensive teams’ might get away with a little more just because every possession you can’t call a foul,” Reaves said.
“So we’re trying to get to that where we’re physical every possession and we have to make the refs call fouls. Our personnel, if we’re honest with ourselves, isn’t the best defensively. Obviously we got AD that covers up a lot, but we have to be physical out on the perimeter and especially when we’re boxing out. We got to do a better job defensively in transition as well.”
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