Lakers News: LeBron James Praises 'Supporting Cast' For Terrific Playoff Performances

The Chosen One had a fairly modest night, but LA role players stepped up.

On Sunday, your Los Angeles Lakers pulled off a stellar 128-112 upset road victory against the higher-seeded Memphis Grizzlies, in the first game of their best-of-seven Western Conference Quarterfinals playoff series.

The team's two future Hall of Famers, center Anthony Davis and All-Star small forward LeBron James, had solid nights, each chipping in 20+ point double-doubles with a special emphasis on defense. But because of all the Grizzlies' defensive attention on Davis and James, opportunities emerged for the team's role players to help fill the box score. Three responded admirably: combo forward Rui Hachimura, shooting guard Austin Reaves, and point guard D'Angelo Russell.

Though Russell's bounce back game after a poor play-in showing last week was expected, the Hachimura and Reaves outbursts were a bit of a welcome surprise. The Lakers' long-standing record for most bench points scored in a playoff game, 29, was matched by Hachimura, who shot 11-of-14 from the floor (including 5-of-6 from three). Reaves scored 23 points, including 14 in the fourth quarter when LA needed a little offensive juice. 

James was happily deferential to both players at critical moments in the action. The 19-time All-Star singled both role players out for praise in his postgame remarks.

“I knew from the first practice that he wasn’t going to be a two-way player for long... I know the type of players that fit with my game and I knew Austin would be that." @KingJames has high praise for Austin Reaves. pic.twitter.com/GEPj501R86

— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) April 16, 2023

"We trust him with the ball in his hands, early in the game and late in the game," James said of Reaves. "We got something going in the fourth quarter... I think Jaren Jackson went on a 5-0 run by himself... we went back to AR, just put the ball in his hands. He was able to hit a pull-up two, able to hit a three when he 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 also provided a glowing report on Hachimura's big game:

"I mean it speaks for itself: he was huge," James said. "Like you said, he hit timely shots. They made runs in the third quarter, he hit two threes in a row. They made another run in the fourth quarter, he hit another three off an AR 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."

The win -- and Ja Morant's right hand injury -- have caused the Lakers' odds to win the entire series to improve drastically in Vegas.

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