Austin Reaves: Lakers Played Hard But Didn’t Execute Enough To Beat Trail Blazers

The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a 122-108 loss at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night to fall to 2-2 early in the season. That score alone shows a game in which the Trail Blazers were largely in control, but leaves out significant context for the loss.

It leaves out that Austin Reaves — the Lakers’ only true healthy ball-handler — scored 41 points, bringing his two-day total to 92 points. It also forgets that the Lakers were without Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Marcus Smart, Gabe Vincent, Jaxson Hayes, Maxi Kleber and Adou Thiero.

Reaves had to carry the Lakers on his back for the second straight night, and while he was able to lead them to victory on Sunday, he could not do so on Monday. But the Lakers rising star guard applauded the available players for the way they fought against Portland, even if they didn’t execute well enough to win.

“I’m tired, but this is why we play the game,” Reaves said about 92 points in two nights. “It’s fun. Obviously, we didn’t play as good as we wanted to tonight, but like JJ said after the game, it’s tough with short rotations. We got seven guys, I think, was out. So, we played hard. We played hard enough to win. We just didn’t execute as good as we needed to.”

Reaves spoke about what teams do in situations like this, when they are extremely shorthanded and physically exhausted on the second night of a back-to-back.

“Honestly, I think it just starts with mentally trying to get yourself ready for the game,” he said. “It’s not easy, but like I said, this is what we signed up to do. So, got to figure it out. And I thought we with the intensity, we played hard enough to win. Just like I said, we didn’t execute good enough.”

The Lakers guard also spoke about his reaction to following up a 50-point night with a 40-point night, and what he was going through in between the two games.

“Nah. And I wasn’t mad at Dave last night for asking that question. Not a lot of it, but yeah. Last night was fun. I didn’t sleep much. Just kind of wired, I was talking to my brother at 3 a.m. because he’s, I don’t know what time it was over there. He was awake and kind of just was like, ‘What the hell just happened?’ That was much more fun because we won. So it’s not as sweet when you don’t win.”

The Lakers now have one day off before their next game, a rematch with the Minnesota Timberwolves, on Wednesday. They are hopeful to get some players back, but Reaves will still be the focal point of the offense for that game. It will be exciting to see what he does as a follow-up act to 92 points in 30 hours.

Austin Reaves happy to get win on career night

With both Luka Doncic and LeBron James out due to injury, the focal point of the Lakers offense became Reaves. And on Sunday night, he delivered the best game of his NBA career and led the Lakers to a road win over the Sacramento Kings.

Reaves finished with a career-high 51 points to go along with 11 rebounds, nine assists, two steals and just two turnovers in the Lakers’ 127-120 victory. It was truly an all-world performance for Reaves and one the Lakers needed in order to pick up the win.

And that win was the most important thing to him as he spoke about after the game, noting that while his game still would have felt special, it wouldn’t have meant as much if the Lakers had lost.