Austin Reaves was one of several players attempting to diagnose the Los Angeles Lakers’ issues after a difficult loss at the hands of the Charlotte Hornets. The Lakers and Hornets were tied at halftime, and although Reaves could have taken issue with a 67-67 draw at the half, he chose to focus on the start of the third quarter.
The Hornets began the second half of a 10-0 and 16-2 run, making it 83-69 with only 4:01 having passed in the quarter. The Lakers made several attempts to climb that hill, and ultimately made it happen in the fourth quarter before careless mistakes handed the win back to Charlotte.
But at this point in the season, L.A. is no stranger to giving up extended runs. They have dug large holes for themselves, and only sometimes have they been able to find a way back into things.
This was the focus of Reaves’ postgame criticism. “Think it comes down to the runs we give up. I think a lot of times, teams go on a 10-0 run pretty quick against us,” Reaves said.
“If you can manage those to maybe like a 10-4 or 8-4 or 8-2 instead of giving up a 10-0, 12-0 run then it’s not as bad, obviously. So I think when things are going bad, we got to figure out a way to stop the bleeding. And that’s on us as players; we got to figure it out as the game is going on. But, you know, like you said, there’s a lot of things, transition, points off turnovers. I don’t know how he shot the free throw night, but a lot of things go into it.”
When asked how the Lakers deal with this ahead of a five-game road trip, Reaves — like LeBron James and Darvin Ham — reverted to controlling what they can control.
“It comes with sports, you know, you obviously never want to see one of your teammates in the situation AD is in, whatever it is. You don’t want to see anybody get hurt. But you got to figure it out. Tonight was a game that… we give them credit, but I think they had 32 points in transition.
“We had a lot of turnovers. I had a bad one late. So obviously, it’s always frustrating losing. Nobody wants to lose, nobody likes to lose. But in sports, you win some, you lose some. And the great thing about the NBA is you play a lot of games. So we’ll have another chance on Christmas Day.”
At 13-19, the Lakers have some serious work to do if they want to stay afloat in the absence of Anthony Davis. If they fail to win at least three of their five upcoming road games, this season could be dead on arrival.
Davis out indefinitely with stress injury
While there have been conflicting reports, the belief is that Davis will miss time after suffering what is being called a stress injury against the Denver Nuggets. After a week of having no clarity regarding his injury, the Lakers finally learned the nature of it and how long he might be out for. He’ll be re-evaluated in two weeks.
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