Austin Reaves is starting to look like the player he was early in the season, which could make the Lakers far more dangerous as the playoffs near, writes Melissa Rohlin of The California Post. Reaves’s scoring has been down since he returned from a strained left calf in early February, but he was aggressively looking for his shot in Sunday’s win over New York. He wound up with 25 points, marking just the third time he has reached the 20-point mark in the past 15 games.
“I think the messaging to him has just been to be himself,” coach JJ Redick said. “And I think sometimes when you miss time and there’s circumstances going on with the team that you can kind of be a little passive. … We want him to be aggressive. Every time he gets the ball, we want him to be aggressive and have a mentality to touch the paint.”
Reaves played like an All-Star as the season began, looking worthy of the five-year, $241MM extension that he’ll be eligible to collect this summer. If he can return to that level, the Lakers will be in position to challenge anyone in the West.
“Have fun,” he explained to reporters about his approach to the Sunday afternoon contest. “Woke up, early game, I was tired when I got here. I just told myself to have fun. I don’t feel like I’ve played bad, I just haven’t made a lot of shots. I feel like I’ve done a lot of other things well. Just continuing to play the game the right way, and I feel like good will come to good.”
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