Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves has been in a nice groove offensively recently, and that continued on Saturday night against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Despite getting off to a bit of a slow start, Reaves went off in the fourth quarter to finish with 22 points, six rebounds and seven assists while shooting 6-for-13 from the field and 3-for-6 from deep.
It actually marked the first time that Reaves has played at Madison Square Garden in his career, and clearly the atmosphere wasn’t too much to handle. He discussed how much he enjoyed it and specifically coming away with the win, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“It’s great. Like you said, it’s my first time playing here. The atmosphere is unbelievable. For us to come out with a win and being productive in the fourth quarter. I didn’t play bad before that but I didn’t make shots, struggled a little bit. But a win is a win and that’s all I care about.”
Reaves had 14 points alone in the first quarter, when the Lakers erased a six-point deficit to earn the big win. He talked about how he was able to be that productive while also guarding Knicks star Jalen Brunson at times:
“We were just being super aggressive. Obviously it’s never an easy task guarding [Jalen Brunson] but we just had to send a double, make him get rid of it and make one of the others make plays. We were scrambling really well on the backside, didn’t end up really shooting the ball very well but we did a really good job getting out of those traps and rotating.”
Reaves played with Brunson with Team USA over the summer and the two are very close, so it had to feel good for the Lakers guard to come away with a win, especially considering how badly his team needed it.
After signing a big contract to stay with the Lakers over the summer, Reaves has had his ups and downs. He seems to be coming into his own in recent weeks though, which will be key if the Lakers want to make another postseason run.
Darvin Ham praises Austin Reaves for what he’s meant to Lakers
The Knicks game came on the heels of Reaves’ best performance of the year, scoring a season-high 32 points to lead the Lakers to a road victory over the Boston Celtics without LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
After that game, head coach Darvin Ham praised Reaves for everything he has meant to the organization in his three years with the Lakers.
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