LOS ANGELES (AP) — Trailing 118-116 with 5.2 seconds remaining in regulation, the Los Angeles Lakers knew Austin Reaves would intentionally miss his second free throw attempt against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night.
Recovering it himself to hit a game-tying floater with 1.9 seconds to go, propelling the Lakers to a vital 127-125 overtime victory, that was something else entirely.
“Yeah, it’s the perfect miss,” Lakers forward LeBron James said. “You got to have a perfect miss at that time, and great timing. He was able to hit it off that left side of the rim, recover it, and then still make a tough floater. Perfect execution on his part.”
Reaves came to the line knowing that would be the last best chance to try to steal an extra possession. It was the second time the Nuggets had fouled him with a three-point lead in the last 9.9 seconds so the Lakers couldn’t attempt a tying 3-pointer, and a third such exchange would have almost certainly left Denver with the advantage, as Reaves explained it.
“So it’s kind of tough to play the foul game because you make the free throw, you’re down one, you’re basically banking on them missing a free throw because you’re going to have to take it the full length of the court,” Reaves said. “And the easiest time to foul when you’re up three is when you got to go full court. You got to dribble the ball full court, so I think with how the time situation was with five seconds, it was just kind of a no-brainer.”
But missing in such a way that the Lakers would have a meaningful chance at recovery to attempt another shot is something no one, not even Reaves — a career 86.5% free-throw shooter — could guarantee.
“I mean, we haven’t seen it much, so it’s a very difficult thing, because none of us practice to miss free throws,” James said. “Just knowing, no matter what your percentage is, you just don’t practice missing free throws.”
Reaves had actually given it a try over the summer, so he knew to keep the ball low.
“I wasn’t going to give the ball an opportunity to go in,” Reaves said. “Some people shoot it high and end up making it on accident, but I don’t think my ball ever got over 10 feet.”
Lakers coach JJ Redick had initially called for Reaves to miss to his right because the Nuggets had previously lined up 1-on-1 on that side of the lane line. What Redick hadn’t counted on was Denver superstar center Nikola Jokic being alone to match up with Deandre Ayton to Reaves’ left.
Ayton allowed Jokic to get inside of him toward the restricted area, giving Reaves free release to collect his own rebound, then score the most important of his 32 points in the game.
“AR made the right play, he missed it to the single side,” Redick said. “And, you know, it’s a hell of a basketball play, and certainly, he’s got good touch. I’ll say that.”
Reaves’ execution helped the Lakers extend their winning streak to five games and pick up a crucial tiebreaker over the Nuggets as they jockey with them, Houston and Minnesota to be as high as the third seed in the Western Conference.
“I’m just mad it’ll mess up my free-throw percentage,” Reaves joked.
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