LOS ANGELES — As Austin Reaves slipped his white headband over his forehead, veiling his bushy brown hair on Friday night at Toyota Center in Houston, the Lakers guard was a step closer to a return that was nearly a month in the making.
He was ultimately ruled out after going through pregame warmups before the Lakers’ Game 3 overtime victory against the Houston Rockets and again before their Game 4 loss on Sunday night, downgraded from questionable, still nursing his left oblique strain. On Wednesday, the wait came to an end. The Lakers upgraded Reaves to available an hour before tip-off of Game 5, setting him up to return as the Lakers try to clinch the best-of-seven first-round playoff series and advance to the Western Conference semifinals against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“If he is able to go, we just want Austin to be Austin,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said before Reaves’ status was changed to available. “That’s the biggest thing. I think as the series has gone on, their pressure and physicality have just increased every game, and ball handling has been important for us ‘all series, so he would certainly help there.”
The Lakers survived without Reaves, their second-leading scorer during the regular season (23.3 points per game) while building a 3-1 series lead. But the sight of Reaves, even when he was just going through a pregame routine over the past few days, was a sight for sore eyes. The Lakers, in need of more backcourt stability, have averaged 20 turnovers per game in the series, including 23 in Game 4.
Reaves told reporters on Tuesday that he was feeling good as he had increased his on-court work throughout the series, but he added that the wait to rejoin the lineup has been “miserable.”
Redick said Wednesday that Reaves’ return was going to ultimately come down to confidence, not series dynamics with the chance to advance on the horizon.
“I told Austin that – I said, ‘let’s take the context of the series out of it,” Redick said. “Because if you’re not confident, you shouldn’t play. If you are confident, you should play.’ It’s that simple.”
Reaves becoming available for the first time in almost a full month certainly improves the Lakers’ postseason hopes; even if the journey ahead remains a significant challenge. One win away from clinching a spot in the next round, the Lakers have so far weathered the storm created when Reaves and leading scorer Luka Doncic both suffered injuries in the same game on April 2.
That night, when Doncic dropped to the court in Oklahoma City, grabbing at his left hamstring in pain, Reaves shouted at the Thunder crowd for chirping at the Slovenian star as he struggled to get up from the floor in the third quarter. Less than 48 hours later, the Lakers learned that Reaves suffered a Grade 2 left oblique muscle injury in the same game as Doncic’s Grade 2 left hamstring strain.
Redick has had to shuffle the roster pieces around since, using the final five games of the regular season to assess his rotation options without Doncic and Reaves, who also missed 19 straight games from Christmas until February with a strained calf. Rockets coach Ime Udoka said he noticed that Luke Kennard has filled the Reaves-sized gap in the Lakers’ rotations through the playoffs, one of several role players who have stepped up.
“The message from that day forward was, we’re going to do everything as a team, that they were going to do everything as a team to give us an opportunity to come back and play,” Reaves said Tuesday. “And they’ve done exactly what they said.”
Udoka said the Rockets were prepared for Reaves playing, or not playing, but that the 27-year-old guard provides the Lakers with a dynamic weapon; one who will come off the bench in his return.
“Obviously, a very talented scorer,” Udoka said. “He’s one of the better one-on-one scorers of the guys that they have out there right now.”
Now, should the Lakers advance to the second round, they could potentially get Doncic back – he is nearing the expected four-to-six week recovery period that Reaves has beat with his impending return. Doncic had not started one-on-one court work as of Wednesday, but he has increased movement during on-court drills over the last couple of days in his recovery effort.