When playing the Golden State Warriors, the game plan for many teams is to force the players other than Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to hit tough shots. Unfortunately for the Lakers, that plan backfired as Draymond Green got the Warriors going early and they never looked back.
Green went a perfect 5-of-5 from deep in the first half as the Warriors shot an NBA-record 63.4% from 3-point range to take down the Lakers 134-120. LeBron James fought illness to lead the Lakers with 33 points and 11 assists while Austin Reaves added 22, but L.A. just didn’t have enough to combat the Warriors hot shooting.
Afterwards, LeBron simply credited Green for knocking down open shots and destroying the Lakers’ game plan. “Yeah, they have the ability to do that, so it’s not surprising,” James said. “Obviously [Draymond Green] got it going early, had the 5-for-5 start from 3 and you have to tip your cap to him and tip your cap to them.
You go out with a game plan and they exploit the game plan, you tip your cap. And [Draymond] definitely messed with our game plan with him shooting the ball like he did in the first half. But when a team makes 26 3s, it will be hard to beat them.”
Reaves echoed LeBron’s thoughts, simply tipping his cap to the Warriors star.
“You tip your hat. At the end of the day, Draymond [Green] is as fierce a competitor as you see in the NBA and it really doesn’t surprise me if he does that,” Reaves added. “Just because of what he gives to the game and like where you said some of those are game plan driven, and for him to just step up and knock down, you tip your hat and you move forward.”
In addition to Green, the Warriors got another eight made 3-pointers from the trio of Brandin Podziemski, Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton II, which simply makes them impossible to defend. The Lakers did what they could, but it wasn’t in the cards to come out on top on this night.
Lakers’ Austin Reaves admits he looks at standings
Unfortunately, the Lakers’ loss to the Warriors severely hurts them in the standings. The team has always spoken about focusing on themselves and Austin Reaves feels the same, but the guard admitted he is keeping an eye on the standings.
“Yeah, for me, I do,” Reaves said. “Obviously, you want to go up in the standings and put yourself in a good position to go make a run at this like we did last year. And nothing’s really any different now.
“You just got to show up like I’ve said before, we got to handle our business first. And whatever happens around the league happens, but good things don’t happen if we don’t win regardless. So that’s the main focus is to go play a good brand of basketball, high-level IQ basketball and we like when we do that, then we feel like we can beat anybody. So that’s the main thing, and yeah, I’ll be watching other games, just because honestly, I’m a fan of basketball.”
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