The Los Angeles Lakers just wrapped up a roller coaster of a road trip. It started with a blowout loss to the Orlando Magic, but then they bounced back with a buzzer-beating win over the Indiana Pacers. They didn’t have much time to celebrate that as less than 24 hours later, they suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Chicago Bulls on another buzzer-beater, this time from half-court.
The most important game of the trip though was the finale as the Lakers and Grizzlies had identical 44-29 records coming in, tied for fourth in the Western Conference. A win would not only give the Lakers a leg up in the standings, but it was also clinch the tiebreaker between the two teams.
While it wasn’t easy, the Lakers ultimately emerged victorious thanks to some stellar play from Austin Reaves down the stretch. After the win, he discussed how important it was for the Lakers to end the road trip strong.
“I think this was a big game for us in the sense of how we lost the other night, we hadn’t been playing great,” Reaves admitted. “We got a good win in Indiana but lost in Orlando, so to go 1-3 on this trip instead of 2-2 would’ve been frustrating. So coming into this game, we knew it was obviously high intensity.
“It was hard with the last game on the road trip because you’re pretty excited to go home. But for that three hours or whatever the game is, you gotta lock in and try to put your best foot forward.”
The Lakers jumped out to a 20-point lead in the first half, but the Grizzlies battled back and things were close in the fourth quarter before Reaves and Co. closed it out.
“That’s a point in the game where you gotta buckle in and stay locked in,” Reaves said. “You want to stay locked in every possession, obviously you’re not gonna play a perfect game. But late-game, we had to be really locked in to what we were trying to do and I felt like we did that tonight. Obviously them getting 127 is not how many points we want to give up, so obviously we can do better. But when we needed it, we got stops.”
The games are starting to get more important from here, and Reaves was up for the challenge as the Lakers ended their trip with a huge win in Memphis.
Lakers’ Austin Reaves: LeBron James & Luka Doncic make my life easy
Everyone knows LeBron James and Luka Doncic are superstars, but the leap Austin Reaves has taken shows that he may also belong on that level.
After his 31-point performance against the Grizzlies, Reaves talked about finding his groove and the role his co-stars have played in that.
“Bron and Luka are so good that they make my life easy,” Reaves said. “Unselfish players that like to play the game the right way. Unbelievable passers, both of them. So you try to get the best outcome every single possession. If we lock in to doing that, I feel like we can get a good shot every possession. So just having the creativity in whatever we’re running and just trusting it and trusting with a pass is a big thing and I felt like we did that well tonight.”
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