Getty Dennis Smith Jr., Rui Hachimura, D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves
Charlotte Hornets guard Dennis Smith Jr. believes the Memphis Grizzlies are in trouble against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The 25-year-old scoring guard doesn’t think the Grizzlies can do anything to beat the Lakers if Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves and Anthony Davis replicate what they did in Game 1 for the rest of the series.
“If them boys hooping like that—Rui, and Reaves and Anthony Davis…I don’t think there’s much the Grizzlies can do” 👀
@Dennis1SmithJr tells @sandeepchandok that Memphis is in trouble vs. the Lakers 😳
The Lakers stole home-court advantage in this first-round series by winning Game 1, 128-112. Hachimura led the way with 29 points off the bench, Reaves poured in 23 points, Davis had a monster stat line of 23 points, 12 rebounds, seven blocks and three steals and four-time MVP LeBron James finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds and five assists.
If the Lakers win Game 2, they will take a commanding 2-0 series lead back to Los Angeles. Games 3 and 4 are at Crypto.com Arena, where the purple and gold went 23-18 during the regular season.
Rui Hachimura Was the Star of Game 1
James and Davis are two of the greatest players in NBA history. However, Hachimura was the star of Game 1.
“He was huge,” James said about Hachimura after Game 1. “Like you said, he hit timely shots. They made runs in the third quarter, he hit two 3s in a row. They made another run in the fourth quarter, he hit another 3 of an AR (Austin Reaves) pump-fake, drive, behind-the-back pass. He also had a beautiful, turnaround baseline jumper by their bench. He was just on time, on target all night tonight and we needed that, especially coming off the bench, especially as well as their bench is. They got so many great players come off their bench. So we was able to counter that with Rui’s big game.”
Hachimura tied Mychal Thompson’s Lakers franchise record for most points by a bench player in a postseason game. The Gonzaga product shot 11-of-14 from the field and 5-of-6 from beyond the arc in Game 1 in 29 minutes.
“I just try to stay in his ear,” James said. “Give him positive motivation, give him positive messages, let him know how important he is to our team, and in order for us to reach the goal we wanna reach, he has to be a huge part of that and he wants to be.”
Austin Reaves Closed Game 1 for the Lakers
James usually closes games for the Lakers in the fourth quarter, but since Reaves had the hot hand in Game 1, he had the ball in his hands instead of James.
“We trust him with the ball in his hands early in the game and late in the game,” James said. “So we got something going in the fourth quarter, and after every stop or if we didn’t get a stop or whatever, I think Jaren Jackson went on like a 5-0 run by himself when we went up seven, we went back to AR and just put the ball in his hands, he was able to hit a pull-up two, able to hit a three when they kind of had a soft switch and then hit another pull-up two to put us up eight. So he closed the game for us offensively.”
James, who is arguably the best player of all time, knew Reaves would be a useful player for the Lakers despite the guard being an undrafted player out of Oklahoma. Reaves signed a two-way contract with the Lakers in August 2021 and Los Angeles converted the two-way contract to a regular contract in September 2021.
“Well it’s not surprising to me,” James said. “I knew from the first practice that we had when we grabbed him that it wasn’t gonna be long, he wasn’t gonna be a two-way player for long. … I’ve been around the game long enough to know great basketball IQ players and I know the type of players that fit with my game and I knew Austin would be that right away.”