vital 127-125 overtime victory<\/a>, that was something else entirely.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s the perfect miss,\u201d Lakers forward LeBron James said. \u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s kind of tough to play the foul game because you make the free throw, you\u2019re down one, you\u2019re basically banking on them missing a free throw because you\u2019re going to have to take it the full length of the court,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cAnd the easiest time to foul when you\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 a career 86.5% free-throw shooter \u2014 could guarantee.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI mean, we haven\u2019t seen it much, so it\u2019s a very difficult thing, because none of us practice to miss free throws,\u201d James said. \u201cJust knowing, no matter what your percentage is, you just don\u2019t practice missing free throws.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reaves had actually given it a try over the summer, so he knew to keep the ball low.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t going to give the ball an opportunity to go in,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cSome people shoot it high and end up making it on accident, but I don\u2019t think my ball ever got over 10 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019t counted on was Denver superstar center Nikola Jokic being alone to match up with Deandre Ayton to Reaves\u2019 left.<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAR made the right play, he missed it to the single side,\u201d Redick said. \u201cAnd, you know, it\u2019s a hell of a basketball play, and certainly, he\u2019s got good touch. I\u2019ll say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reaves\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just mad it\u2019ll mess up my free-throw percentage,\u201d Reaves joked.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Trailing 118-116 with 5.2 seconds remaining in regulation, the Los Angeles Lakers knew Austin…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":656742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[17378,3372,3134,33255,4345,128309,3363,3141,3663,1260,3369,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-656741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-austin-reaves","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-free-throw","tag-houston","tag-jj-redick","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-minnesota","tag-nba","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116231610483201736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}