Austin Reaves said the Los Angeles Lakers failed to execute their defensive assignments in a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Oct. 27, 2026 at Crypto.com Arena.
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Austin Reaves said the Los Angeles Lakers’ issue in their Oct. 27, 2026 game against the Portland Trail Blazers at Crypto.com Arena was not about making a late adjustment, but about executing what they were supposed to do.
“I don’t think there was any adjustment to be made,” Reaves said after the loss. “It was more so us not doing what we were supposed to. Game plan discipline wasn’t great. We gotta talk more on the defensive end and just be sharper in our base coverages.”
Reaves pointed to defensive problems at the team level, saying the Lakers had “a lot of blown assignments.” He added that it was not limited to one player and that he also made mistakes.
“I think it’s been, good in spots,” Reaves noted. “Like I said tonight, we didn’t do our basic coverages the way we were supposed to. We had a lot of blown assignments. It was everybody, it wasn’t just one person. I made some bad defensive mistakes. You could go around the room. So, [we] gotta be better.”
Reaves said the Lakers’ offense has been a strength, but he cautioned against using that as an excuse to be careless with the ball or defensive execution. He said reducing turnovers would create more opportunities to score and would also support defense and transition.
“Yeah, but you’ll just give yourself more opportunities to score more points. You don’t wanna look at it as, kinda that,” Reaves said. “You don’t wanna think ‘Ah, but we can turn the ball over 20 times ’cause our offense is good.’ If we can get that number down to 10 and get, 10 more shots on basket, our offense will be even better, and it’ll also help our defense, transition defense. We still have to be mindful of turnovers. But yeah, offense has been good.”
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