Lakers’ Austin Reaves gets brutally honest about his performance against the Mavericks

The Los Angeles Lakers entered Tuesday night’s game against the Dallas Mavericks on a bit of a hot streak. Team JJ Redick has been inconsistent this season, but he seemed to be finding his best basketball and climbed into the top six in the Western Conference.

Tuesday night seemingly gave the Lakers another opportunity to continue their winning streak. The The Mavericks were also missing Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic due to injury, leaving the Mavericks without an arm. Dallas also had a five-game losing streak going into this game, but that didn’t stop them from destroying the Lakers 118-97.

Austin Reaves he played poorly on both ends of the floor in this one, and he accepted as such after the game according to Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times.

“I was really, really bad on both sides of the ball tonight,” Reaves said after the game, per Woike.

Reaves had one of his worst games of the season in all game facts in this one. Offensively, the junior guard scored just 15 points on 5-for-14 shooting. Defensively, the Mavericks picked Reaves off and attacked him in isolation time and time again in this one, especially in the second half. The The Lakers were outscored by 25 points when Reaves was on the floor for the entire game.

The Lakers have a chance to warm up in the upcoming part

No game is guaranteed for the Lakers, who have shown they can beat and lose to anyone on any given night. Even so, the upcoming leg of the game offers an opportunity for the team to warm up and gain some separation in the standings.

Of course, that all depends on Tuesday night’s stunning loss being a one-off for a team that has been playing pretty well of late. Last season, losses like these were followed by frustrating results, so yes The Lakers need to change that trend this time.

If they can get back on their feet and start playing good basketball again, the Lakers have a long streak of winnable games ahead of them. The Lakers will host the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday before a doubleheader against the San Antonio Spurs. After those two, the Miami Heat come to town with their all the current off-field baggage surrounding Jimmy Butlerand then the Brooklyn Nets come to town.

Next week, the Lakers play a road game against the Los Angeles Clippers before hosting the Washington Wizards and Boston Celtics. The Lakers don’t leave Los Angeles until Jan. 25 when they play the Warriors, and they don’t leave the state of California until Jan. 27 when they head to Charlotte.

The combination of opponents and the comfort of playing at home should allow the Lakers to make some runs in the coming weeks. They will need some of their best basketball, but the opportunity in front of JJ Redick and company is impossible to ignore.