The Los Angeles Lakers have one of the most offensively talented backcourts in the NBA in Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. Some were unsure how the two would pair together, but they proved they can work together perfectly fine as both are high IQ players who can dribble pass and shoot at a high level.
Reaves is certainly a believer in his pairing with Doncic in the backcourt and feels they can create a lot of chaos on offense for the opposition while also holding their own defensively.
“I think it brings so much chaos offensively because you got two guys, you know obviously I’m not putting myself in Luka’s category because he’s top three player in the NBA,” Reaves said in an exclusive interview with Lakers Nation. “But it brings two guys in the 1-2 spot, then obviously you have Bron too, that are willing passers, that can create chaos on defense. So therefore, I think it’s gonna be tough for teams to stay in front of us, I feel like we can get good looks every possession. And then defensively, we just have to lock down and just be with it mentally every possession. Right after the trade I think for like a month or two months, we had a top five defense in the NBA so we’ve shown that we can do that we just have to continue to grow in our schemes and how we wanna do that and be smart with all that.”
Offensively, the two make sense, especially as Reaves is able to take advantage of the attention being paid to both Doncic and LeBron James to attack the paint and create havoc. The question for the duo does come on the defensive end, but Reaves feels they can be just fine on that end as well.
“Everybody likes to blow things out of proportion,” Reaves added. “I think when you become a really good defense it’s not about one individual defender guarding the ball, it’s about everybody that’s locked in to rotations. If you do get beat, if I get beat on a slot drive then the low man’s gotta be there and the rotation on the backside’s gotta be there. Because to be honest, with how much talent is in the league, you look at guys that are First, Second Team All-Defense, they get blown by some of the times too. So you gotta be in situations where, if that does happen then you have to be connected every single possession and I think that’s what becomes a good defense.”
Defense does take an entire team to be locked in together, but good point-of-attack defenders and a deterrent at the rim certainly make things easier as well. How the Lakers build out the rest of the roster this offseason will be critical in how this team thrives on both ends of the court, but Reaves and Doncic in the backcourt is undoubtedly an extremely promising pairing no matter how you look at it.
One thing that is for sure is that the Lakers view Austin Reaves very highly as a cornerstone piece of this franchise. And it sounds as if the feeling is mutual as Reaves recently spoke about wanting to play his entire career with the Lakers. The guard can opt out of his contract next season, but by all accounts, remaining in purple and gold is his ideal scenario.
