Austin Reaves: Lakers Must ‘Control The Controllables’ To Get Out Of Slump

The Los Angeles Lakers lost their third consecutive game on Thursday night, falling to yet another team missing key players. This time it was the Phoenix Suns, without their two leading scorers, who defeated the Lakers 113-110 as Austin Reaves missed an open 3-pointer at the buzzer that would’ve sent the game to overtime.

At a time when the Lakers should be coming together and playing their best basketball of the season, they are instead coming apart and are at serious risk of dropping in the standings and perhaps into the Play-In Tournament.

As for what the Lakers can do to end this slump and start turning things around, Reaves feels they have to control the things that are in their control as oftentimes those little things that can swing momentum in a game are not going the Lakers’ way, via Spectrum SportsNet:

“Control the controllables. There’s a handful of plays tonight that I feel like if we are better, it could swing a game. Every possession matters. It sounds like a cliche because there’s so many of them, but it can swing the game in either direction. Throughout the game one little play, one little mistake can ignite a crowd, ignite a team, whatever it may be so, control those controllables.”

At the end of a game, it becomes easy to focus on a few big moments, especially close games like this one against the Suns in which there was a missed shot at the buzzer and a defensive breakdown from the Lakers that led to the game-winning 3-pointer. But this game was also one of runs where the momentum constantly shifted from team to team.

A careless turnover leading to an easy bucket, an offensive rebound allowed, a loose ball that the opposition gets to first are all things happening throughout these games and the Lakers are constantly too slow. Effort and intensity is something that the Lakers are in control of every time they step on the court and Reaves feels if they can bring that consistently, these end results will change.

Austin Reaves admits frustration is ‘very high’ after Lakers’ loss

Austin Reaves has always been someone who has no problems speaking what he feels and being honest and following the Lakers’ loss to the Suns he admitted that his frustration level is very high after their third consecutive defeat.