Reaves Hits Rock Bottom as Lakers Lose Game 1, 108-90
About this episode
The Lakers struggled in Game 1 of the playoffs, with Austin Reaves underperforming significantly.
The Lakers as a team weren't particularly bad (individual players, most importantly Austin Reaves, certainly were) but that's not necessarily all that encouraging, because in the end they lost 108-90 in a game they hung in for a while but never really had even an ounce of real control. And to make it worse, the Thunder didn't seem to do anything special, either. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn't go off. They didn't pile up a huge point total. The Lakers defense was pretty active. But all of this illustrates the issues the Lakers knew they'd be facing, namely that the Thunder are a better, deeper team. The Lakers simply have no margin for error, and they errored too much in Game 1. And now to Austin Reaves: He was bad. Really bad. He was able to get himself in the lane and put some pressure on the Thunder, but overall there were far too many turnovers (four) and far too few buckets (three field goals, on 16 attempts). And unlike how it went in his return against Houston where Reaves was terrible from the floor (4-16), A.R. was unable to supplement the bad shooting with volume from the line. Reaves only shot two free throws. (As a team, they only shot 13, which isn't going to get it…
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