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Without Luka Doncic, the Los Angeles Lakers have to play a precise brand of basketball against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Throwing things at the wall and seeing if they stick will usually not result into good outcomes when facing a team that wants to repeat. Coach JJ Redick and the rest of his squad led by LeBron James knows this but it seems like Austin Reaves does not have enough grasp of their team strategy yet.
Redick goes brutal on Reaves after Lakers' Game 1 loss to Thunder
See, the Lakers were playing quite great against the tough Thunder defense in the first half. But, Coach JJ Redick saw his squad struggle to score more than 19 points per quarter after that. LeBron James attributed the loss to not having Luka Doncic. Their head coach on the other hand? He thinks that a chunk of their woes came from Austin Reaves playing subpar basketball, via Sam Amick of The Athletic.
"Yeah, he didn’t play well," were the only words that Coach Redick could muster about Reaves.
See, the Lakers guard was just not finding his groove despite being on the court for 36 minutes. Reaves got eight points but it came at the expense of a horrid 18.75% field goal percentage while not being able to knock down a single shot from three-point range. He was also able to drop six assists but even that had a cost because the Thunder forced him to a game-high four turnovers.
Defensively, Reaves performed well. He grabbed five rebounds and notched a block but all of those were overshadowed by his unfortunate offensive performance. Will James and the Coach Redick-led Lakers see Reaves become better on offense in Game 2 against the Thunder?
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