Austin Reaves evaluates the Lakers’ preseason loss vs. Phoenix Suns
First, teamwise, obviously not a ton of the rotations that you’ll see in a regular season context. JJ said he was looking for three different things and thought you kind of got to certain parts of it. What was your view on the overall first preseason game? Yeah, I mean, uh, I feel like if you, you know, you’ve been a part of it, I’ve been a part of it. misses on five times, you understand that it’s not going to be perfect the first go around. Uh the expectation of being perfect is uh we have a ways to to get there and we know that. And like JJ said, he was looking for three things and those things are not um they’re not uncontrollables, they’re controllables. And you know, in spurts, we were doing that and in spurts we weren’t. We just got to uh compete a little harder, pay a little bit more attention to the details, and we’ll be fine. Yeah. JJ made a point to talk about he noticed some additional burst and just kind of like the way that you were playing in the preseason and it looked like that showed in the first half. You’re able to get to the spots that you wanted to. Did you How did you feel, I guess, getting back into NBA action after a long off seasonason of work? Yeah, it felt good. Uh just enjoy playing basketball. Uh I Greg Greg’s told me twice already that I look quick and this might be the two only times I’ve ever been told that. So, uh, feels good. But I’m just happy to be out there playing basketball um again with these guys. When was the first time? Uh, he told Well, he’s told me that twice. Yeah, it was just him that nobody else has told me that. So, he told me that like uh probably two weeks ago and then he told me that again in a days. So, uh I’ll take that compliment for sure. Come on, do your job. Perfect. What What do you make of DeAndre? Uh we had some plays defensively, two blocks. Yeah. Also had some turnovers in the lane. Um what what stood out? They’re loud there. Um it’s the same it’s the same thing as you know kind of the outlook on the team you know um you know new organization you know there’s a lot that he’s got to learn within our you know system and um you know you can’t grade him off of you know 16 17 minutes of basketball obviously uh if you’ve watched him play in the past u you know he’s super skilled um you know can play both ends he had a couple really good blocks and u you know we um myself included, have to, you know, figure out how to, you know, help him a little bit more on the offensive end, get him uh the ball where he wants to, you know, have it. Um but that’ll, you know, come in time as, you know, we’ve had three practices together and uh you know, tonight. So, uh, that’ll all come in time.
