HOUSTON -- The Los Angeles Lakers entered the 2026 NBA Playoffs in a compromised position.
Not only were they down the league’s scoring champion Luka Doncic to a hamstring strain, but the team also lacked its second-leading scorer Austin Reaves who suffered an oblique injury against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Apr. 2.
Reaves missed the first four contests of the Lakers’ first round series against the Houston Rockets. However, the 23.3-point per game scorer returned Wednesday night in Los Angeles, coming off the bench in a 99-93 defeat. Despite winding up on the losing end, his presence on the court was the culmination of persistence and perseverity over a 4-week timeframe.
“There were days I left my house at 7:30 in the morning and didn’t get back until 7:30 or later at night, just going through every possible thing I could go through to help myself get better,” Reaves said. “We did it as a collective. We huddled up when it first happened and basically attacked every single day after that.”
In Game 5, his first action in 27 days, Reaves finished 4-of-16 from the floor and 2-of-8 from three. But Friday night’s Game 6 in Houston presented a different script for the fifth-year shooting guard. He was thrust into the starting lineup for the first time all series, and the Lakers’ offense flourished as a result. Reaves ranked third on the team with 15 points, regularly finagling his way to the rim with seven field goals on his 10 attempts inside the arc.
“It would have been much easier if I was able to play a couple real games before, but the nature of what happened with the injury at the time — you just have to play the cards you’re dealt,” Reaves said. “We did literally everything we could possibly do to get myself back into this opportunity.”
Reaves also matched his career-high with three blocks, thriving in his role defensively in a decisive 98-78 victory that featured a season-low point total from the Rockets. With effective contributions on both ends in a series closeout game, he was able to enjoy a major milestone in his recovery process.
“It’s a lot more fun when you win,” Reaves said. “The other night, obviously we didn’t do what we wanted to do. We didn’t really play a particularly good game of basketball, but we competed at a high level and still gave ourselves chances. To come here, it’s tough not to hear all the chatter and stuff from the outside world that we had a 3-0 lead, lost two in a row, and 16 teams have forced a Game 6. Obviously those things creep into your mind, but you have to let them go and play basketball the way you’ve always played basketball. Tonight we put four good quarters together and played well.”
With the series secured, Reaves now earns four days of rest before the Lakers battle the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday night. For Reaves, it will be a full circle moment, returning to the same venue where his long and arduous recovery process launched a month ago.