Austin Reaves has tough quote after Lakers’ playoff loss

The Los Angeles Lakers’ season has come to an end, and Austin Reaves is taking things personally.

The Lakers lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves 103-96 in Game 5 of their Western Conference first-round playoff series at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday night. Rudy Gobert scored 27 points and had 24 rebounds in Minnesota’s win, which ended the series earlier than many anticipated.

Austin Reaves went 5/14 from the field and scored just 12 points in 41 minutes. That was Reaves’ lowest point total and worst shooting performance of the series, and he knows it came at a bad time.

“I really just think we didn’t play good. Credit to Minnesota but … you can point the finger at me, I didn’t play good enough to help us be successful,” Reaves said after the game, via ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.

He’s not wrong. Neither he nor the Lakers played well. And a big issue they had is that they couldn’t get rebounds. Minnesota had 54 compared to 37 for the Lakers. Gobert dominated in the middle. And Reaves did not play well enough.

Lakers fans got their hopes elevated after the team acquired Luka Doncic nearly three months ago. However, that move did not resolve their problems in the middle, and Minnesota sent them home early.