I would not have Reeves play. They have three games to win the series and get ready for Thunder. Makes no sense to hurry him up to play.
If you load manage him, less games and keep him at 32mpg, then how do you expect him to pas Dirk, Wilt and MJ in scoring this year. And he still wants to pass Kobe and Malone, too.
I'm not concerned about Austin Reeves. Doncic is a rocket killer. I hate that dude. Reeves doesn't do anything but colludes their rotation which is a benefit to us. However, I'm hoping we blow them out this upcoming game because they are going to try their best close it out and prevent the Rockets from bringing the series back to Houston.
I called it before we traded for him that this was the main thing motivating KD at this point in his career. He's given up on winning more rings and is just playing for himself at this point. Dude loves playing basketball, that's obvious, but he isn't a team guy.
Durant should not play next game and rest up. If the Rockets play like they have some sort of desperation and defense like they did last game they will win. They have to run when they can and play faster with their offense. The thing that I fear the most is that the referees are going to call borderline fouls stunting our defensive effort.
Given how this team performed without KD during the year, not sure we're even in the playoffs if you had done that.
We went 4-0 without him this season though? Yeah, okay, he does have the third-highest +/- on the team behind Amen Thompson and Steven Adams, but I'm never sure how much to read into that as an individual impact metric given that it can also reflect the groups of players the guy tended to play with quite a bit.
I expect most of them to be here. It will be good for whoever is left. It provides additional valuable data for evaluation. I would argue that playoffs reveals the true strength and weakness of our players, team and coaches so more data we have to evaluate the better it would be.
If I was the Lakers I close this out in 6. Winning tonight is like rushing home to get a beating from your parents.
I would love to extend this series but this team didn't change who they are after one game expecting the lakers to close us out but hoping for the best.
This is an odd thing to say, but Reaves may help us. He gives us a clear defensive target to attack - there is little he can do to slow Amen down on the dribble drive. I honestly don't think he changes the offensive side more than it has been. Smart and Kennard have been playing out of their trees! Reaves may mirror their production, but if he does so at their expense, it doesn't kill us. On paper, it doesn't look good. But on the court, who knows? If we can jag a win in game 5, anything could happen
Im not the type who buys into, good measuring stick for next year, good learning experience. Some of these guys won’t be here next year. U learn in the season for these moments and it’s all mental. U got it or you don’t.
I think we have a better chance without KD tbh - with or without Reeves. Either the Rockets offensive game plan is terrible with KD or KD goes off script - whatever the case is, Lakers keep trapping him and he turns it over - whether it's on him or others, result is still a TO. But at the end of the day, Rockets will still lose
Reeves is gonna be rusty as a shooter. Have to watch out for his facilitation. But I’m not worried Reeves is gonna make a huge difference this game. Next game though…
I'd like to believe, but I'm sure Reeves is going to have a great shooting game against us. The issue with the Rockets will be if they can score. They couldn't even get to 100 points in the 1st 2 games. Considering they are away, their shooters may be throwing up bricks and defensively they won't have enough if the refs are calling fouls on them not allowing them to be aggressive. If we try to play a half court offense with no fast breaks, we are toast. Our half court offense is pitiful.
I want it, he acts so cocky on the bench. And he average 14 ppg against us this season.. and we can hunt him on defense.
Reaves doing nothing more than taking Bronny’s minutes and giving the Lakers another ball handler is a win for them Rockets so bad offensively at times I don’t even look at it like he’s a bad defender to target…so is Kennard, so is Laravia, so is Ayton…Rockets still struggling to score 100 points in most of the games
