With the regular season kicking off in less than a week, the Los Angeles Lakers only have two more preseason games remaining. Time isn’t exactly on their side, particularly for Austin Reaves, who was able to return from his ankle injury on Tuesday in Las Vegas and played limited minutes.
Reaves getting back in the lineup was nice as it allowed head coach JJ Redick to begin figuring out his rotations. Redick is expecting to use a nine-man rotation but is open to expansion should a player impress him.
The nine-man rotation was the case Tuesday night when Redick ran with his anticipated Opening Night players in the first half. As the preseason nears a close, coaches have dress rehearsals, and Reaves liked having that early preview.
“Yeah, I think it’s just a comfort level in knowing,” Reaves said. “Anything you do, if you know what’s asked of you to do or you know the game plan going into the game, obviously throughout the flow of the game things are gonna change, it’s not always gonna be a set time, someone might get hot and you might sit a little longer or you might stay out a little longer. But knowing where you’re gonna generate most of your shots, defensively what is being asked of you, is really good. That just comes with the foundation that this coaching staff has came and put in. To me, it’s a really good thing.”
A positive review that Redick has received in his short time as head coach is his level of detail. Reaves spoke to that detail and structure as the team continues to learn what Redick wants to put in place.
“Obviously we have scripted plays that either start or end in that to give us an advantage, but I think it’s just read and react and playing basketball,” he said. “To your point of growing through the preseason, yeah, we’re still putting stuff in right now that we’re gonna do when the season starts. So I feel like we’ve done a really good job as a team getting good at what the base was and then kind of just adding things throughout the week. So I think with the staff that we have, it’s very detailed, very IQed and we have to execute it as good as we can, not before we move on to the next thing, but make sure that we’re in sync with what we’re doing right now.”
The initial substitution pattern was Max Christie in for LeBron James halfway through the first quarter, Gabe Vincent for Reaves past the midway point and then Jaxson Hayes in for Rui Hachimura. Anthony Davis looks to be the star that plays the entire first and then James takes his place to begin the second quarter.
It is hard to not compare coaches, but Redick seems to be on the right trajectory by being extremely detailed and structured. This is something Darvin Ham was not known for and Reaves seems to be bought into what Redick is selling to this point.
Austin Reaves’ ankle ‘felt good’ despite minutes restriction
Seeing how the Lakers have had bad luck with injuries the past few seasons, Austin Reaves’ ankle injury caused concern this past week. However, he said that he ‘felt good’ despite being on a minutes restriction against the Warriors on Tuesday.
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