Austin Reaves had a very blunt assessment of his play against Mavs
In the Lakers’ loss against the Mavericks, Austin Reaves struggled on both sides of the ball and he’s the first to admit it.
No one would call this iteration of the Lakers road warriors. They are 8-11 away from home and just lost both of their games in Texas, falling to the Rockets on Sunday and losing to the Mavericks on Tuesday night.
Their most recent defeat against Dallas was the most frustrating one in quite some time. Despite missing their two biggest stars, Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić, the Mavericks dominated the purple and gold, beating the Lakers 118-97.
The Mavs got some great performances from their guards, with Quentin Grimes scoring 23 points on the bench and starters Spencer Dinwiddie and Klay Thompson combining for 32 points.
Lakers head coach JJ Redick was baffled by his team’s overall defensive performance and had no explanation for the blown coverages and inability to prevent the Mavericks from scoring.
A lot of the scoring happened when Austin Reaves defended the shooters. He struggled massively in one-on-one situations and was honest about his poor performance after the loss.
“First half was god awful,” Reaves said. “Second half I thought was better. Can’t allow that. I was just really, really bad on both sides of the ball tonight.”
It was literally: find Austin Reaves and punish a guy you don't think can defend until they take him off the court. This is how you have a game-worst -25 night. pic.twitter.com/dxLVJdsEUe
— Bob Sturm (@SportsSturm) January 8, 2025
Allowing your opponent to score in bunches and having no offensive response is one heck of a combination.
Simply put, Reaves is too important to this team’s success to have such a bad showing and still have the Lakers win, even against an undermanned Mavericks team.
Overall, Reaves has shown growth on both sides of the ball this season, so you can partially chalk this up to a bad performance on the road. After all, virtually everyone had a bad game in Dallas so it’s not as though Reaves was an outlier.
Still, the Lakers have demonstrated that they struggle against teams with good perimeter players this season. They’ve lost to opponents like the Cavs, Pistons and now the Mavs, who dominate teams with quality guards and wings.
If the Lakers want postseason success this year, they must improve their perimeter defense. Reaves is a starting guard, so they’ll need him to be better on both sides of the ball moving forward.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.