Lakers newsletter: How Austin Reaves played through shooting slump

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Lakers’ newsletter after a brief holiday hiatus. In the time since we last spoke, Anthony Davis was dominant, then injured and now, LeBron James is 25 years old again.

This week, though, I wanted to look at one of the Lakers’ most valuable role players, Austin Reaves, and how he and the team handled an unusual mini-slump from the second-year guard.

Shoot your shot

Teammates kept finding him, and Austin Reaves, a player committed to making the right play, had to keep doing the right thing — shoot.

It happened and happened and happened again — 13 times total, a big number for a player who has attempted more shots only twice in 96 career games.

And, on Friday with the Lakers in a tight game against the Hawks in Atlanta, Reaves only made one of them.

“I went back and watched all my shots and the majority of them were good shots,” he said Monday. “Unfortunately, they didn’t go in. But it wasn’t like I was taking shots and going to the bench and the coaching staff and players are like, ‘Why are you shooting that?’’”

The Lakers, already starved for shooters, can’t afford to let one of their best get bogged down in a slump — Reaves missing all five of his shots against Miami before going one for 13 against the Hawks. But in his two-year career in the NBA, he’s already earned a great deal of trust from his coach and teammates, the kind of thing that helps a young player turn the page.

Monday night against Charlotte, Reaves made five of seven shots from the field, including a pair of three-pointers, as he scored 15 points in the Lakers’ 121-115 win.

“At the end of the day, you never get too high or too low. Especially when you put the work in,” LeBron James said Monday. “You just always have another opportunity a couple days later, maybe a day later, maybe a week later to be able to change the narrative of maybe yourself. Obviously [Austin] could have played a lot better, and there were a couple games where he didn’t play to his ability, to his own personal abilities. Tonight was the complete opposite. We needed everything from him. He’s such a big part of our team.”

LeBron James and Austin Reaves celebrate after James scored with an assist from Reaves against the Wizards.

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been tested.

The one-for-13 shooting night was one of the worst in the NBA this season. Charlotte’s P.J. Washington had a scoreless 0-for-13 shooting night at the start of December. Chicago star Zach LaVine went one for 14 on Nov. 18. And Toronto’s Gary Trent Jr., like Reaves, had a one-for-13 game.

Among those players, Reaves’ nine three-point attempts were the most.

“He’s a hooper, man,” coach Darvin Ham said of Reaves prior to the Charlotte game. “I don’t think his confidence wavers. He was having a rough night and still got 13 shots up so. … And I welcome all of them — except a couple, maybe. … But that’s my little daredevil, as I call him. He’s just fearless in the fact that he’s going to attack the game with a lot of aggression on both sides of the ball. He’s going to compete at the highest level. So, he’ll get through it.

“… I expect him to snap out of it pretty quick. He’s another one that works his tail off with his package and where he’s going to get his shots, how he’s going to get his shots. I have all the confidence in the world.”

A free agent at the end of the season, Reaves is in line for a big payday after going from undrafted rookie to rotation player to invaluable contributor in what’s felt like a blink.

“He was an undrafted guy. So he had to earn his stripes,” James said. “He didn’t think he was gonna be thrown into the rotation when he was thrown into the rotation — and not only thrown into the rotation, he became a huge part of our rotation. And then he became someone we trusted to the point where he hit a game-winner in Dallas.

“And now he’s a staple of everything that we do.”

For Reaves, outwardly, he took the slump totally in stride while internally he seethed.

“Everybody goes through these games. You just gotta look forward. I mean, if you dwell on it, you’re gonna kinda stick on that energy that [it] brings when you’re not playing well,” Reaves said. “I was actually talking to [assistant coach] Phil Handy this morning and he was talking about energy and mindset and controlling that type of part of it. Because I’ve been, like I said, super frustrated the last four days. And his big message to me was just, ‘Let it all go. Go back to being who you are: joking around, messing around, having a good time. And things will happen.’”

Just before halftime on Monday, Reaves stepped in front of a pass for a quick steal and a jumper at the buzzer, the kind of play that combines his smarts and skill.

He was back to being who he is.

Anthony Davis on IR

Reporters spoke to Anthony Davis for the first time since he was sidelined because of his sore right foot on this road trip, and the Lakers’ star shed some light on what he’s been going through.

While there’s cautious optimism after Davis said his pain in his foot is almost completely gone, the situation is still close to dire. If, for instance, the stress reaction in his navicular bone were to become a stress fracture, it’d be a serious outcome likely ending Davis’ season.

“The stress reaction [can lead to] a stress fracture, and that’s a whole different ballgame,” Davis said.

The Lakers and Davis will need to be cautious as he progresses toward a return. He’ll get more imaging on the foot this week to see how recovery is going.

Song of the week

“Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I had a chance to watch the wonderful “Meet Me in the Bathroom” documentary about the New York rock scene in the early 2000s, and it was a great reminder of how Karen O’s vocals plus the driving drum beat and quivering guitar riff made for a perfect rock song that, despite being nearly 20 years old, still sounds incredible.

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