With Luka Doncic sidelined for about a week due to a finger sprain and a leg contusion and LeBron James still recovering from sciatica, Austin Reaves turned in a star performance in Sunday’s win over Sacramento, writes Dave McMenamin of ESPN. Reaves carried the scoring load with a career-high 51 points while adding 11 rebounds and nine assists.
“Especially on a night where you don’t have Luka, you don’t have Bron, you don’t have Jaxson (Hayes), you got to go out there and be big for the team,” Reaves said. “I wasn’t in my head thinking, ‘You got to go score 50.’ It was, ‘Do whatever you can do to help the team win.'”
Teammate Jarred Vanderbilt told Reaves on the team bus that the Lakers would need 50 points from him, and the fifth-year guard delivered, becoming the 12th player in franchise history to reach that mark. McMenamin points out that Reaves tallied 45 and 37 points in the two games he played without Doncic and James last season, so he has a history of producing big scoring nights as the number one option.
“I do think for this group it’s important to know that you can win a basketball game without those two guys,” coach JJ Redick said.
There’s more on the Lakers:
- Center Deandre Ayton had his best game since coming to L.A., posting 22 points and 15 rebounds in 36 minutes, McMenamin adds. The free agent addition has fit smoothly into the offense, averaging 15.7 PPG while shooting 62.9% from the field. “This team is, no matter who’s on the floor, we’re going to come out and play hard as hell,” Ayton said.
- Doncic and Reaves worked with Ayton in practice this week to develop better pick-and-roll chemistry, according to Khobi Price of The Orange County Register (subscription required). Ayton admits he’s a “confusing big” because he plays a variety of ways as a roll man.
- Veteran guard Gabe Vincent left the game after turning his ankle early in the second half. He wore a walking boot as he left the arena, but he told McMenamin that X-rays were negative.
Its cute they act like Jaxson Hayes is a legit player.
One thing about Reeves is he will be asking for a max deal to come back to the Lakers. That could mean the Lakers cut ties with LeBron and trade him. Do they want 2/3 of the cap space for 3 players?
Massive ref help for the Lakers resulted in Reaves scoring 21 of his points from the free throw line, as they fouled out Keon Ellis in just 18 minutes of playing time (!). Lakers shot 46 free throws to just 18 for the Kings.
Did you even watch the game? The Kings kept on popping 3 pointers, while the Lakers were driving in. The Lakers took 25 three point shots to the King’s 43. When you drive in the chances of being fouled are significantly higher than when you shoot outside shots.
@ Johnnyb
I agree the Lakers deserved more calls and free throws, just not 2.6 times as many.
Calls were legit
Sac is that awful
6 of them were intentional in the last 90 sec when catch up was happening, the others were most on drives at rim and he got plenty of contact
I think the bigger picture here is just how bad Sac is today
Yes, Sac is awful, but also the Lakers played hard the whole game and were very connected l, while being undermanned. The Lakers played 7 players essentially. Their 8th man Knecht only played 10 mins, and a two way player 3.
Playing back to back tonight against Portland l, the Lakers are down another player (Vincent), so have only 6 of their 7 players playing l, so will be using their 2 way players for heavy mins.
So, likely the Lakers going to lose next 3 games, however, how hard and connected they played last night bodes very well the potential of this team when they got their players back.
The Lakers are legit
Yea, kudos to JJ for sure
I don’t think they are legit as stands tho. There’s not a 2 way player on the entire team. They severely lack size and D on the wing and have very very little POA defense
Smart and to some degree Vincent have done a very good job on POA expense. Vando and LaRavia have been very good defenders too. Ayton is showing improvement every game on the defensive side too.
But more importantly than POA defenders, the Lakers as a whole are playing great team defense and have been hustling hard. The Warriors game was a fluke as the Lakers shot 60% from the free throw line, and 25% from 3.
The Lakers have great offensive talent. If they play hard on defense with this group they are legit team.
Don’t worry Bronny is suited up and ready to score 50 tonight.
@ Cap
Were the no-calls on the other end also “legit”?
Sac was playing very unorganized ball all night. They could have given RW an extra couple from my eyes but he’s always tough to officiate
No, Sac didn’t create any fouls for themselves and if they play anything like last night (consistently shooting Curry bombs ) they will probably be bottom 5 in frees throws drawn all year as my guess. Even Schroeder seemed to be frustrated as he constantly got to the 2nd level and none of the other 4 guys were doing anything and the spacing was comical (constantly in each others laps)
Trade him immediately. He’s not a max player but maybe somebody thinks he is.
Reaves with 51 pts …… Lakers have to trade him. He and Luka defensively does not work.
Lol! You must be first generation AI model cause you say a lot of really dumb things.
The Lakers showed that the team sees a bigger picture of the playoffs. The whole team played really hard on both ends of the court the whole game, and they played really connected.
It bodes really well when their top 2 guys and the rest of the rotation comes back from injury.
Regular season facade. It doesn’t translate to the playoffs. We’ve seen this before and it doesn’t end well. LeBron is too old and Reeves will disappear at crunch time. Trade him and extract maximum value.
The opposite is true, and here is why:
1: Luka’s numbers go up during the playoffs. Last year he had food poisoning for two games against the Wolves, came to a new team and off of injury. So fluke year.
2. Rui went into the playoffs with quad injury that he needed 6 week rest to overcome, but he played.
3. DFS (now with Houston) was playing with major ankle injury that he needed a surgery for after the playoffs.
4. Reaves played in the playoffs with a broken toe. I’m n prior years his numbers went up during the playoffs.
5. LeBron was coming off of groin injury and wasn’t 100%.
6. Lakers had no true center, they do now, and Ayton has been great and improving every game, and playing hard on both ends.
7 Lakers had no bench and now they have 4 legit bench players, while they lost DFS. Smart has been great for the Lakers. LaRavia’s defense and hussle has been great. Both Vando and Vincent were injured so were not reliable for the playoffs. They are now. Maxi Kleber will contribute too when he comes back. The year the Mavs went to the finals, Jason Kidd was closing games and with Kleber. He had the highest plus/minus of any Mavs players.
Just like with every team health is going to play a major factor. The Lakers were broken down cause they played lots of extra games at the end cause of the LA fires. If healthy this postseason it will be a completely different scenario, with a true center, better bunch, and a full year with Luka.