The Lakers led the Warriors 40-15 twenty seconds into the second quarter of Friday night’s NBA Cup game at Chase Center, and they lost 112-95. Over the rest of the night, per ESPN’s play-by-play, Golden State outscored them 97-55. Afterward, Austin Reaves said, “I was terrible again,” per BasketNews.
He’s right, and the “again” is the part that should worry JJ Redick. Reaves committed eight turnovers on Friday after committing eight on Wednesday against the Clippers. That is 16 turnovers and six assists in two games, per ESPN. The tidy story about this collapse is that it happened while Luka Doncic sat. Some of it did. But the bigger problem was an offense that stopped moving the ball after the first quarter, and the Lakers can’t hand Reaves the keys in Doncic’s rest minutes, or the closing minutes, until he cleans this up.
The First Quarter Was the Exception
For 12 minutes the Lakers looked like the team that beat Golden State by 22 nine days earlier. Doncic had 21 points and five assists in the first quarter, per the Associated Press recap, and the Lakers led 38-15. They forced 10 Warriors turnovers in that quarter alone. Per the play-by-play, they had 10 assists and made eight threes.
Then it stopped. Over the last three quarters, the Lakers had eight assists and 16 turnovers, and made three threes. They made zero threes in the second quarter. Golden State made 18 of its 22 threes after the first quarter and finished with 31 assists, per ESPN. Two of the Lakers’ turnovers were shot-clock violations, which is the box-score version of five guys standing around watching the ball.
Steve Kerr’s line afterward was that “25, you know, it’s the new 12,” per ESPN’s Anthony Slater. Fine. Leads swing faster now. But a 42-point swing in under 36 minutes needs more than pace. Golden State kept passing, and the Lakers stopped.
Yes, the Bench Minutes Were Bad
I’m not letting the bench off. Doncic sat for the first 5:20 of the second quarter and the Warriors won that stretch 18-6, per the play-by-play. He sat again for the first 3:58 of the fourth, and the Lakers went 0-for-5 from the field with three turnovers while Golden State scored 11. Add the garbage-time 1:21 and the Lakers were minus-26 in the roughly 11 minutes Doncic sat. That is the same pattern I wrote about after the Lakers lost the minutes Doncic sat against Portland, only worse.
The bench numbers are ugly. Collin Sexton went 0-for-6 and finished minus-19. Sandro Mamukelashvili scored four points and finished minus-23. Jarred Vanderbilt and Quentin Grimes combined for three points. Golden State’s reserves, led by De’Anthony Melton’s 16 and Georges Niang’s 11, outscored the Lakers’ bench 50-7, per ESPN’s box score.
Reaves took that on himself too. “That first group to start the second unit was bad,” he said, per BasketNews. “Like I said, that starts with me, so I’ll be better.”
Most of Reaves’ Turnovers Came Next to Luka
Now the other half. By my count from ESPN’s play-by-play, six of Reaves’ eight turnovers came with Doncic on the floor. Three came in the first quarter, during the 38-15 run. Two more came in the final 3:04 of the second quarter, including a lost ball to Draymond Green with 1.5 seconds left in the half, with the score tied at 53.
Look at how he lost it. Five of the eight were lost balls, two were bad passes and one was a charge, per the play-by-play. Four of those five lost balls were steals, two by Draymond Green, one by Stephen Curry and one by Melton. Golden State’s defenders were taking the ball off his dribble.
Wednesday looked different on paper. Against the Clippers, with Doncic out, Reaves threw five bad passes, and five of his eight turnovers came in the third quarter, per ESPN’s play-by-play. He had one assist that night. The Lakers still won by 16, with Collin Sexton scoring 21 and the defense holding the Clippers to 87, but Reaves’ line was a mess.
Put the two games together and you get a player trying to do too much in both roles: as the primary creator when Doncic sits, and as the second handler when he plays. Redick said before Friday’s game that the keys were to “take care of the basketball” and be ready for Golden State changing its defenses, per Yahoo Sports. The Lakers did neither for three quarters.
Reaves Had Been Better Than This
What makes this an alarm is the four games before it. Reaves had four, six, three and zero turnovers in the first four games, per ESPN. Against Portland on Tuesday he scored 26 on 13 shots with seven assists and no turnovers in 39 minutes. That is the Reaves the Lakers need: he gets downhill, he gets to the line, and when the help comes, the ball moves.
He had six turnovers in the Clippers win on Oct. 23, too, which is when we wrote that Reaves and Walker Kessler saved the Lakers from their turnovers. That night he shot 10-for-13 and had nine assists, so the giveaways came with a lot of production. The last two games have not. Over Wednesday and Friday he shot 15-for-35.
Doncic kept his turnovers down on Friday. He had 37 points, five assists and three turnovers, per ESPN. In the second half, Slater wrote, the Warriors spent much of their time hunting him on switches. Curry dropping him with a dribble move before a three in the third quarter will be on every highlight package this week. Doncic was plus-23 in the first quarter and minus-14 in his 25 minutes after it, per the play-by-play.
Blame the Turnovers Before the Refs
Redick spent a good part of his postgame on the flopping calls. “But all of our flopping fouls have been defensively,” he said, per BasketballNews, and he questioned why Brandin Podziemski wasn’t called for one. He has a point about consistency. Vanderbilt was called for a flopping technical in the first quarter, and the Lakers picked up four technicals in all, including one on Doncic late in the third and one on Matisse Thybulle in the fourth.
But the Warriors scored 27 points off Lakers turnovers, per ESPN. Those came from Lakers hands.
What I Want to See Against Toronto
The Lakers host the Raptors on Sunday at 4-2. I’ll be watching two things.
First, Reaves’ turnovers. If he’s back under four, Friday was a bad night against a defense built to take the ball. If he has another six or eight, Redick has to take some of the creation off his plate, and the obvious place is the bench stretch, where I’ve argued Collin Sexton should run the second unit, Friday’s 0-for-6 included, and Reaves can work off the catch.
Second, the assists after the first quarter. The Lakers had 10 in the first 12 minutes on Friday and eight in the last 36. Look at the full Lakers roster and depth chart: Doncic and Reaves are the creators, and everyone else needs the ball to find them.
Reaves said he’d be better. Sunday he has to show it, because a Lakers offense that runs through Doncic and Reaves can’t afford eight giveaways from either one.