The story from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
Austin Reaves turned this game around in the third quarter!
The Los Angeles Lakers have been an awful third-quarter team this season. Most of the reason is attached to the defense where the team is at the bottom in almost every category. They continued that trend in this game being down 11 points.
Then Austin Reaves entered the game and provided a huge spark by knocking down a huge 3 pointer, defending his man (Don’t think this is a common occurrence with this team!) and playing strong team defense. The most important aspect Reaves brought to this game was energy to his teammates and most importantly the crowd.
The Los Angeles Lakers won this game BUT…
This team still has a lot of things to work out. The Cleveland Cavaliers showed why they can never pay LeBron James enough and how his influence on that franchise puts him in the G.O.A.T. conversation.
That being said, the Los Angeles Lakers had no business having to work so hard against this team to win this game. They were sloppy with their turnovers, continue to have defensive breakdowns and the game-by-game occurrence of allowing players that are nonscorers (Ricky Rubio dropped 18 points on them!) to hurt them.
A win is a win though.