The Los Angeles Lakers got back on track on Friday night, returning home and easily beating the Philadelphia 76ers to improve to 5-4 on the season.
Even though it came against an undermanned opponent, the win was important for the Lakers coming off a disappointing 1-4 road trip. After the team’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies to end the trip, head coach JJ Redick called out his players for their lack of effort.
That loss appeared to lead to some tough conversations during their film session. Austin Reaves revealed that Redick called him out for his effort level, which he appreciated as he wants to be coached hard.
“Like you said, we didn’t have the trip that we wanted to have,” Reaves said. “Things happen and you have to figure out a way to fix them. Basically, he came in today, them as a staff, and challenged us. I met with JJ before film and he challenged me. He showed me a couple clips of instances where I wasn’t competing the way I should’ve and that’s not like me. I want to be coached like that and we have a group that wants to be coached like that. So when he comes in and basically puts it on the screen, you can’t hide from it. So I thought everybody took it good today.
“I felt like the change was good. DLo was super professional about everything. He’s been an All-Star in this league and not a lot of guys would take that in a good way and go be productive. I think you seen today was one of his better games so shoutout to him and I thought it was good.”
The change that Reaves is referring to was Redick benching D’Angelo Russell in favor of Cam Reddish. While it’s only one game, that helped get the Lakers going offensively as they shot 45.7% from 3-point range against Philadelphia.
Reaves played a big part in that, finishing with 20 points, six rebounds and seven assists while making his first five 3-point attempts and shooting 6-for-10 overall from deep.
Considering he and others had struggled from deep on the road trip, he discussed how good it felt to get going from beyond the arc.
“Yeah, it feels good. My brother has been texting me wearing me out about why I’m missing shots and he’s definitely asleep right now, so when he wakes up I hope he’s happy with how I shot it tonight,” Reaves said.
“But it’s a miss or make league. You’re gonna go through times where you feel like you can’t miss and you’re gonna go through times where you feel like you can’t make one. You look at it, Dalton (Knecht) going 1-for-8 and 0-for-5 from 3, he had a lot of really good looks and two or three of them I know touched the rim three or four times and rattled out. So if he makes those then we shoot and even higher percentage and we’re obviously still encouraging him to shoot every good look he gets because he can shoot it at a high level. So I think it just is a testament to us playing good basketball.”
The hope is that the Lakers can build off this performance, and Reaves certainly has the right mentality to do so.
D’Angelo Russell wants to help Lakers win
Getting moved to the bench could not have been easy for D’Angelo Russell given all that he has accomplished in his career as a starter. He is taking it in stride though and emphasized that he is willing to do whatever it takes to help the Lakers win games.
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