Somewhat lost in the shuffle of another outstanding performance from LeBron James, a history-making night from Anthony Davis and a bounce back outing from D’Angelo Russell, was the best offensive game of the series from Austin Reaves in the Los Angeles Lakers’ Game 4 victory over the Denver Nuggets.
Reaves finished with 21 points and a team-high six assists as the Lakers staved off elimination. Reaves has been tasked with defending Nuggets star Jamal Murray for much of the series and has done a more than admirable job, holding Murray to just 38% shooting from the field and 20.8% from 3-point range. But it was great to see him provide a boost offensively on this night as well.
The Lakers are still in a 3-1 deficit to the Nuggets and, of course, no NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the series. But Reaves is happy that the Lakers have the chance to play another game and believes they are ready for the challenge that lies ahead.
“We get another opportunity to go play one more game, and if we win, come back and play another one and keep moving from there,” Reaves said after the win. “Obviously wish we won 4-0. Odds aren’t stacked in our favor, but anytime we can keep ourselves floating above water, we have an opportunity to go do something special. We’re ready for the challenge.”
It’s a challenge just beating the Nuggets once, let alone the four straight times the Lakers are going to have to do in order to win this series. A big reason they were able to get their first win in the series was that they didn’t get dominated in the third quarter.
“I think it’s been a point of emphasis already for a reason and going into that third quarter, it was win the third quarter,” Reaves added. “Obviously we didn’t do that but them beating us by two in the third, we’re still up by 11 or 12 or whatever it was so overall a good third quarter.”
The Lakers lost the third but only by two points and maintained a double-digit lead going into the fourth that they were able to hold on to. It’s only one game, but it was a massive game for the Lakers and now they get the chance to turn that one game into two and possibly make some history.
Austin Reaves believes ending losing streak to Nuggets builds confidence for Lakers
In addition to keeping their season alive, the Lakers also ended an 11-game losing streak to the Nuggets with the victory. Losing that many times in a row to the same team has to have some sort of effect on a team and Austin Reaves believes that finally getting a win over Denver builds the confidence of this Lakers team.
“Obviously you see that we can win those games, close games late when they make runs,” Reaves said. “I think that’s when in the past, they’ve really taken advantage of their little 7-0, 8-0 runs that would turn into the 12-2 or whatever. Tonight, we kept them from kind of getting that and more. So it just builds confidence in what we’re trying to do and hopefully continue to do.”
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