Austin Reaves’ three-pointer lifts Lakers past the Phoenix Suns

The joke, publicly and privately, among the Lakers leading up to and during the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament was the amazement at how badly a room of rich people could want to win the $500,000 prize waiting for each winning player Las Vegas. “The bag,” they said was an amazing motivator, the kind that could turn regular season basketball pre-Christmas into something that rivaled postseason energy and intensity. But there was always more, one other driving factor, the biggest competitors on earth all pushing to be the first.

Tuesday night in the quarterfinals, a game that would end or extend the Lakers’ time in the tournament, Austin Reaves ’ three with 15 seconds remaining pushed them to a 106-103 win. The Lakers will play New Orleans in Las Vegas on Thursday, two wins away from the grand prize. The tone for this whole thing has been set by LeBron James , the biggest star in the league, who approached the games with added urgency.

“He really wants to be the first,” one Lakers staffer admitted pregame. Tuesday, he played like it. The beat to Dr.

Dre’s “The Next Episode” boomed as the crowd rose to its feet and waited for James to write whatever was coming next. He bounded into the paint with the speed and strength that’s been unmatched at age 38 in basketball history. He contorted and scored from the left side, the Suns calling a timeout and James delivering his 31 st point of the night.

He finished with those 31 to go with eight rebounds and 11 assists. He also had five steals, playing with the kind of defensive effort that’s just not there on a nightly basis for the league’s all-time leading scorer. The Suns had a late chance, nearly forcing a Reaves turnover in the backcourt, but the Lakers were awarded the timeout.

Anthony Davis split on a pair of free throws and Kevin Durant’s buzzer beater wasn’t close. In their first two meetings this season, the script was nearly identical. The Phoenix Suns, the team with the better shot-making, would race to the big early lead before the Lakers would find something leading to a second-half run and a stolen win.

This time, the plot was the same – the characters just swapped parts. It began with a gift, a sloppy turnover for a team that did almost nothing but commit them for the previous 24 minutes. The Lakers handed the ball to the Suns to start the second half, the mistake triggering a run that would erase all the good will the Lakers built in the first half.

Unlike their first two meetings, the Lakers were the team that set the tone from the tip, dictating the flow of the game with force and intensity. The Suns looked caught off guard, committing 10 turnovers in the first quarter alone. The Lakers would lead by as many 15, James’ playmaking and Davis’ dominance inside putting the Lakers in great position to advance with just two more quarters to play.

Then, the gift. James began the second half with a turnover leading to an easy uncontested layup for the Suns that gassed them up for a quick, lighting-strike run to reset the game. The Suns scored 14-straifht beginning with that bucket, enough to grab the lead for the first time since the score was 9-7.

The Lakers, knocked back on their heels, turned to Reaves who re-=injected life into the team after a horrific 113 seconds erased their double-digit lead entirely. He responded with a snipped of the play that made him one of Team USA’s best this summer, hitting threes, drawing fouls and even scoring on a putback. But the big shot in the fourth, an arcing triple that ended with Reaves flexing and howling, was his biggest moment.

Now, the Lakers and James get a chance at making more of them. .