Episode Details

The Lakers as a team weren't particularly bad (individual players, most importantly Austin Reaves, certainly were) but that's not necessarily all that encouraging, because in the end they lost 108-90 in a game they hung in for a while but never really had even an ounce of real control. 

And to make it worse, the Thunder didn't seem to do anything special, either. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn't go off. They didn't pile up a huge point total. The Lakers defense was pretty active. But all of this illustrates the issues the Lakers knew they'd be facing, namely that the Thunder are a better, deeper team. 

The Lakers simply have no margin for error, and they errored too much in Game 1. 

And now to Austin Reaves: 

He was bad. Really bad. He was able to get himself in the lane and put some pressure on the Thunder, but overall there were far too many turnovers (four) and far too few buckets (three field goals, on 16 attempts). And unlike how it went in his return against Houston where Reaves was terrible from the floor (4-16), A.R. was unable to supplement the bad shooting with volume from the line. Reaves only shot two free throws. (As a team, they only shot 13, which isn't going to get it done.) Would the Lakers have won with Reaves scoring more than eight points? Maybe not. But they had absolutely no chance with him playing this poorly. 

"He didn't play well, but he's going to bounce back. He's a great player," JJ Redick said after. 

Lakers fans aren't so sure. 

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky 

SEGMENT 1: Lakers hang for a while, but still lose by 18. 

SEGMENT 2: Reaves has a terrible game. 

SEGMENT 3: OKC's gonna be tough to crack. 

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