Lakers News: Austin Reaves Joining NBA Legends In High-Scoring Conference Finals
Although your Los Angeles Lakers will be fighting for their playoff lives tonight against the Denver Nuggets at home, LA's starting shooting guard Austin Reaves is having the run of his life.
LA trails Denver 0-3 in their ongoing best-of-seven Western Conference Finals series. The Lakers need to win every game in the series going forward to extend it.
Reaves, at least, has been making himself some cash in the series.
Per Justin Russo, the 6'5" swingman out of the University of Oklahoma has now submitted three consecutive bouts wherein he's scored 20 or more points, dished out five or more assists, and converted at a 65% true shooting percentage. Russell reveals that only three players in NBA history -- recently-vanquished Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan, and Reaves' own Lakers teammate LeBron James -- have achieved that in the same duration of playoff time.
It's a remarkable feat in offensive efficiency for anybody, let alone an undrafted player on a minimum contract.
He's averaging 22.7 points on .577/.571/1.000 shooting splits, five assists, five rebounds and one steal in the series thus far, while providing solid defense against occasional human flamethrower Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Reaves is hardly the problem in this series. The onus falls on his comrades D'Angelo Russell and Dennis Schröder to pick up the scoring slack behind stars Anthony Davis and LeBron James.
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