Austin Reaves Discussion: Foundation Piece Or Trade Piece?

Struggled a bit. Missed a lot and got stripped several times. But good hustle and energy.

 

Not his night on offense...teams pay attention to him now. He's going struggle some in the playoffs, it's normal, it's his 1st dance. Austin will be fine, Im a good bit more worried about D'Angelo.

 

Even when AR has a bad game, he's still a plus player all-around.

Very late he goes to the line and you see he's gotten a huge bruise all down his right upper arm, from his shoulder to his elbow, along his biceps: no mention of it by the announcers. Of course AR hits both FTs. Hillbilly Mamba!

 

He's not going to get these bump calls in the playoffs but yeah he'll figure it out

 

the board he grabbed near the end was huge. but yeah, he had a pretty rough game overall.

still think we should let him get a little more involved on offense in crunch time instead of always having lebron pound.

 

It was horrible that LeBron dominated the ball in crunch time and threw it away multiple times being lazy and careless

 

The more ball dominant Lebron is the worse we will play. Takes Austin and others out of the game offensively. We have shown in short bursts that Lebron playing off ball cutting and setting screens is effective. Lebron will still get his and the offense will be more fluid.

 

Agree in principle but last night Austin was more like rookie Austin on offense (showed flashes but not this year's explosion).

Add in DLo and your on ball creator ends up being Schroeder who had trouble finishing and hitting the lobs.

Overall though they need to use Lebron off ball more.

 

The more so the easier for Lebron. I don't expect Dlo to look like that again and when he is on it allows Austin to be Austin. My main thing is keeping Lebron injury free and as fresh as possible. As long as Lebron and AD are on the court we have at least a 50-50 chance of beating anyone.

 

That bruised was caused by ad in houston I believe forgot what game both went for rebounds and ad hit AR

 

Was surprised at how he played. Wasn’t just missing shots, but sloppy with his handle and got stripped plenty of times. I think it was the increased physical intensity of the playoff atmosphere, but I trust that AR will adjust

 

I think this guy tends to be too critical of Reaves but he feels both Lebron and Reaves were bad on D. My take is both played really well in the 4th on defense but was bad beforehand.

 

I kind of agree with the comment that indicated he looked very fatigued for many of these bad plays. Kind of like hitting the wall as a rookie. I have been quietly thinking for awhile now that he gets taken advantage of down low in a number of ways, being stripped, being bullied, looks like he has slow hands, slow reflexes. I still love him and feel like he is a winning player but he really does need to address some of his weaknesses and he really needs to build some body strength. A lot of the stuff he gets beaten with now, ain't gonna be working that way in 3 years.

 

Yeah Austin kind of willed us to wins the past 10 games with his efficient play, now he paid the piper as he was fatigued in this knockout game.

 

We had a lot of mentally and physically fatigued players but some how pulled it out. I think that speaks highly of our chances going forward with a few days rest and a levelling of the playing field.

 

A.R.-15 will benefit from the small break, the leg can heal up and the many contusions, the one on the right arm is pretty massive.

 

definitely right about that play, but his defense hadn't stuck out as bad to me recently overall. i'll have to watch more closely going forward. defensive advanced stats (which aren't perfect, obviously) don't hate him, but they don't love him, either.

 

A least KAT never scored when he switched probably more on Kat than HBK though

 

friends don't let friends bring up Luol Deng