After such a fantastic 2024-25 regular season, Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves didn’t play at his best in the team’s first game of the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
The Lakers lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves by 22 points in their series opener, and Reaves scored just 16 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field. He also wasn’t super impactful from a playmaking standpoint, as he totaled nearly as many assists (three) as he did turnovers (two).
Reaves reflected on his Game 1 performance with the Lakers’ Game 2 matchup looming and didn’t mince words. He used an expletive to describe how he fared in the opening game of the Lakers’ first-round series and stressed that he wasn’t his normal self out there.
At Lakers practice, I asked Austin Reaves what stood out watching himself during the Game 1 film: “That I played shitty… I wasn’t myself. To what the reason was, don’t know. But I just gotta go out there, be myself, play my game. And have fun doing it.” AK
— Kamenetzky Brothers (@KamBrothers) April 21, 2025
In his defense, Reaves wasn’t the only star player for the Lakers who underwhelmed in Game 1. Forward LeBron James scored only 19 points. For perspective, Timberwolves big man Naz Reid outscored James on Saturday, and Reid came off the pine for Minnesota.
But with Reaves underperforming as both a scorer and playmaker, the Lakers ended up with just 95 points in the game and might need to pick up a win in Game 2 in order to keep their chances of advancing past the first round alive.
After all, Reaves and the Lakers lost home-court advantage in the best-of-seven series with Saturday’s loss, meaning Los Angeles will already have to win at least one game in Minnesota in order to win the series. However, if the Lakers lose Game 2 as well, Los Angeles will need to come out on top in hostile territory at least twice.
Simply put, the Lakers’ season could be hanging by a thread with another loss to Minnesota on Tuesday, which makes it all the more important that Reaves has a bounce-back showing against the Timberwolves.
Hopefully, Reaves will look more like the player who was dominant during the tail end of the 2024-25 regular season when the Lakers and Timberwolves meet to do battle again on Tuesday. When at the top of his game, he’s a real difference-maker who can make life easier on the floor for James and guard Luka Doncic.
