LOS ANGELES — The Lakers’ roster went from short-handed to depleted within a day.
Barely 24 hours removed from picking up a road win against the Sacramento Kings on Sunday night without five players, including stars Luka Doncic and LeBron James, the Lakers’ task somehow became more challenging on Monday night: match up against a stingy Portland Trail Blazers team without all but one of their main ball handlers.
With veteran guards Marcus Smart and Gabe Vincent added to the injury report, the Lakers were left with fifth-year guard Austin Reaves as the lone ball-handler signed to the main roster available on Monday.
And even though Reaves, who was fresh off scoring a career-high 51 points against the Kings, has shown multiple times he can lead the Lakers in these types of situations, the Blazers were too suffocating, handing the Lakers a 122-108 defeat at Crypto.com Arena.
“That was just difficult with the personnel that was up there,” Coach JJ Redick said. “It’s hard to run off offense without ball handlers.”
Reaves led the way with 41 points on 13-of-22 shooting from the field (3 for 8 from 3-point range) for the third 40-point game of his NBA career to go with five assists and four rebounds.
He went 12 for 14 at the free-throw line.
“It just starts mentally trying to get yourself ready for the game,” Reaves said of the challenge of playing short-handed. “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 with the intensity, we played hard enough to win. We didn’t execute good enough.”
Reaves has scored 143 points so far this season, tying Elgin Baylor (1962-63) for the third-most points through the first four games of a season in franchise history (35.8 points per game).
“I am tired, but this is why we play the game,” Reaves said. “It’s fun. Obviously we didn’t play as good as we wanted to, but like JJ said after the game, it’s tough with short rotations. We played hard. We played hard enough to win. We just didn’t execute as good as we needed to.”
But Reaves also had eight of the Lakers’ 25 turnovers, with the Blazers scoring 28 points off the Lakers’ giveaways in addition to the 35 second-chance points Portland scored off of 19 offensive rebounds.
“We needed to take care of the ball,” Deandre Ayton said. “Portland did a great job of speeding us up.”
The Lakers (2-2) hung around for most of the first half on Monday, leading by as many as five in the opening quarter and having multiple leads in the second before trailing by six (57-51) at halftime.
But the visitors’ physicality and intensity picked up coming out of the mid-game break.
“Them boys played hard,” Ayton said of his former team. “They was really focused. They didn’t let up at all. And I just feel like, yes, we’re a new team, but this is going to be a good game to look back on and watch film on to see what we need to work on.”
Ayton (16 points, eight rebounds) and Rui Hachimura (16 points, six assists) also scored in double figures for the Lakers. So did Jarred Vanderbilt, who finished with a season-high 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting to go with seven rebounds and three assists.
Second-year guard/forward Dalton Knecht scored 13 of the Lakers’ 15 bench points before both teams emptied their benches with the Blazers leading 119-105 with 1:14 remaining.
Knecht finished with 16 points on 5-of-13 shooting.
“He can build off this,” Redick said of Knecht. “Wasn’t a perfect game, but had a really good stretch there and it wasn’t just making shots. It was playing with some tenacity, getting out in transition. And just continue to believe in him as a player and understand that it’s gonna be a process with him. And he understands that. He and I talk about that all the time. But have that very high belief in.”
Portland was led by Deni Avdija’s 25 points, four assists, four rebounds and three blocked shots. Jrue Holiday finished with 24 points, six assists, five rebounds and two blocked shots.
Jerami Grant scored 22 points off the bench for the Blazers.
Redick said the team is hopeful that Smart and backup center Jaxson Hayes, who’s been sidelined for three consecutive games because of left patellar tendinopathy, will be available for Wednesday’s road game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Lakers will also play the Memphis Grizzlies at FedExForum on Friday before returning to Los Angeles.