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By Bryan Colbert Jr.
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Austin Reaves arrived in Detroit averaging 23.5 points a game.
He was shooting just under 40% from 3-point range and just under 90% from the free-throw line.
One night against the Pistons changed all three numbers.
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Reaves scored 43 points Sunday as the Los Angeles Lakers beat Detroit 121-116 without Luka Doncic.
Through 11 games, Reaves is averaging 25.3 points on 50.8% shooting from the field, 41.3% from beyond the arc and 90.9% from the line.
His hot start to the season has made him the NBA’s only player averaging at least 25 points on 50/40/90 shooting through Sunday.
Two nights earlier, Portland had seen how Reaves could get to 25 even when his jumper wasn’t falling.
He missed seven of his eight 3-point attempts against the Trail Blazers but made all eight of his free throws. That gave the Lakers another 25 points alongside Doncic’s 53 in a six-point win.
With Doncic sidelined by lower back tightness Sunday, Reaves took 27 shots and made 14. He hit four of six from deep, including an off-balance 3-pointer with 46 seconds left, and went 11-for-11 at the line.
Dating back to a win in Sacramento, he had made all 25 of his free throws over the Lakers’ last three games.
There’s a reason those three percentages get tracked together.
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When Stephen Curry averaged a league-leading 30.1 points in his unanimous MVP season in 2015-16, he shot 50.4% from the field, 45.4% from three and 90.8% at the line. He sustained those numbers over 79 games.
Reaves has played 11, and the margin is still thin enough to trace back to his final trip to the line in Detroit.
With 2.2 seconds left, he had made 68 of 75 free throws for the season. A miss on either attempt would have left him below 90%.
He sank both, and the Lakers left with their fifth straight win.
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