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Well, that wasn’t a particularly encouraging loss.
Despite facing a Thunder team coming off a week of rest, the Lakers were the ones who looked out of sorts for most of Tuesday’s Game 1 loss. While they didn’t trail by 30 at halftime — an improvement over the last two trips to Oklahoma City — it never really felt like they were in the game in the second half.
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That is despite closing the gap to single digits numerous times. But each one of those runs was answered immediately by OKC, which not only had the solutions to what the Lakers threw at them but also had different players step up throughout the night.
The Lakers, meanwhile, were out of viable options two injuries ago. Now, they also have to figure out what to do with Jarred Vanderbilt’s spot in the rotation after his nasty injury in the second quarter.
Let’s take a look at the three biggest takeaways from Tuesday…
Austin Reaves was bad on Tuesday. There is no debate or conundrum there. In fact, it was one of the worst performances by a Laker in the playoffs in decades.
But this is a situation with plenty of nuance.
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For one, the Lakers can’t win this series if he isn’t playing at an All-Star level. For much of this game, the Lakers were hanging around despite Reaves having one of the worst games of his career. Even an average game from him in this one would have made it a far more interesting contest.
At the same time, you can understand why Reaves isn’t playing well. There isn’t much more of a “thrown in the fire” situation than being put into two closeout games against the Rockets and then a series against the defending champions. He clearly doesn’t have his legs under him and is being forced to catch up on the fly.
Even when he was healthy, this was a defense and team Reaves struggled against. In three regular season games, he shot 42.9% from the field, 23.1% from three and had nearly as many turnovers (14) and made field goals (15).
The Lakers need Reaves to be better. It’s an incredible tall ask, but if he can’t get back to his regular season form, this is going to be a short series.
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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/3-takeaways-lakers-game-1-044756224.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-06 04:47:00
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