Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves has made significant improves in each of his five seasons with the team, and that appears to be the case again to start this one.
With LeBron James and Luka Doncic out, Reaves has taken over as the Lakers’ first option as has led the shorthanded team to two wins in their first three games. That included a career-high 51-point performance that he followed up with a 41-point performance.
Then on Wednesday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Reaves led the team with 28 points while tying a career-high 16 assists in a 116-115 victory. The Lakers let go of the rope and allowed the Timberwolves to come back from a 20-point deficit, but Reaves saved the day with a buzzer-beating floater as time expired to secure the win.
After the big shot, Reaves explained what he saw and what was going through his mind on that play, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
“Everybody is looking at me, and in those situations, you have to be calm, be confident and lead your guys through [it],” Reaves said. “We were up [by] 10 [points] or so late, and they went on a run. … It’s hard to not kind of crumble in those situations. But you got to keep energy high, you got to keep the spirit high.”
Reaves has hit a lot of clutch shots in his young career, but it’s one that he missed in the same building that stuck with him. In Game 4 of the first round of last year’s playoffs, Reaves missed a corner 3-pointer as time expired that would have tied the game. The Timberwolves would go on to win the series in five games, so Reaves was happy to get his redemption this time around:
“That one felt good,” Reaves said of his late-game heroics Wednesday. “I mean, for obvious reasons, we won. But last time we were in this building, I had the shot to tie it in the corner in the playoffs, in Game 4, and missed.
“Let me tell you, that feeling sucks.”
Reaves going from undrafted to playing at this level is a great story, but that was essentially his plan all along:
“I fell in love with the game because my brother loved it, I got to spend a lot of time with him. Both my parents played, too. It was kind of … it was meant to be,” Reaves said, sharing how he declared at the ripe age of 7 that he would play in the NBA someday. “It’s been a fun week. But there’s a lot of basketball to go.”
Reaves is right that there is a lot of basketball to go, but if he keeps playing at this level when James and Doncic return then the Lakers will be a force to be reckoned with in the Western Conference.
LeBron James, Luka Doncic & more reactions to Austin Reaves game-winner
After Austin Reaves’ game-winner to help the Lakers beat the Timberwolves, a number of people took to social media to give him a shoutout, including LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Jarred Vanderbilt, Pau Gasol, Magic Johnson, Alex Caruso, Josh Hart and others.
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