Austin Reaves On Playing with Anthony Edwards for Team USA

In this clip, Austin Reaves (Los Angeles Lakers) talks about playing with Anthony Edwards (Minnesota Timberwolves) on TEAM USA Basketball in the FIBA World Cup.

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I was um I was with you in Manila for a little bit uh and I want to to get your perspective we haven’t seen I want to get your perspective on that experience looking back and then also you obviously were just you know matched up with

Tyrese in in Vegas last week but just the the talent from that team um you know this is the you know a lot of these guys are the future of the league just like what you enjoyed the most about playing with them what you learned from them everything like that uh I mean

Obviously we didn’t you know finish the way we want to uh winning is the main goal at um any I mean winning is the main goal in everything but um the best thing for me was you know just um you know learning from them but also like creating friendships with them

Like when I come into the NBA I had I knew one guy in the league and it was Landry shamet that was my roommate my sophomore year at witch State um so when I you know come into the league like I didn’t know anybody so everything was kind of knew everybody’s always buddy

Buddy now um so going into that whole situation that was kind of one of my like how am I going to fit in because I know all these guys know each other already and uh probably have played together or you know been around each other but for me this was my second year

In the league at the time and uh I didn’t know anybody um but you know being able to create real relationships you know with these guys uh Mel and cam um from the get-go were great for me you know obviously you know both of them and Kell’s personality you know made

Everything easier for me just because he’s so outgoing so goofy um and we kind of see you know we kind of go about life the same way uh so it was great but I just learned you know a little bit of everything from everybody even the

Coaches just kind of the way that they you know see the game they go about the game the way they do Scout and stuff like that um so yeah it was a great experience did you did you feel like an outsider when you got to the NBA yeah

For sure 100% I I mean I I joke all the time I said this other night I was like I’m not supposed to be here uh I got I got lucky and they gave me an opportunity and I ran with it what was the uh can you just sort of explain to

Like from a basketball perspective the difference between FBA not just the rules but the way the game is played what officiated whatever FBA versus the NBA I mean it’s just a a lot more physical and I think obviously the style of play is way different you know here in the States

Now it’s you know you go to a lot of one-on-one stuff uh there’s not really much offense your offense is a lot of the times High pick a rooll um but I remember when we played Spain uh like our second or third game you know down screens back screens you

Know and you don’t guard that in the league um you know more so when you played that was real stuff but you don’t get much of that anymore just retired two years easy guy yeah easy backward here we go start youed yall know what I mean no I made

This I made this comment during the I think I think it was maybe after the first loss or maybe it was right after the the metal round but I made the comment I think the adjustment for us like meaning you know Americans that didn’t grow up playing in

Europe or Africa or Asia where you know Australia whatever that aren’t used to playing FBA basketball is that there are uh continuous actions that just flow into the next action and there’s certainly some offenses that function like that in the NBA for sure night to night but

There’s less than a handful yeah less than a handful so your your your habits you’re not just accustomed to playing and defending that way and on the other end I made the comment like our go-to at times was just like let’s run a high pick and roll with Jaylen or let’s run a

High pick and roll with Anthony Edwards we didn’t get the continuous you know second action third action fourth action Germany was running some man yeah they were running for real and I mean I remember after the Spain game which we ended up winning I looked at one of their players

And like yo y’all play the most beautiful basketball like y’all might not y’all might not score you know as much or make as much shots whatever but like y’all’s actions the way like it’s in sync you know pin Downs the elevator screens like if someone it’s ball

Watching for half a second you’re back cutting like and everybody knows exactly you know where to go know when all this stuff is happening um so I I personally really enjoy it like it’s it’s beautiful basketball do do you think that like there could ever be buyin from NBA

Players to play more I think more like that I wouldn’t because like my thing with the NBA is like you literally have you know On Any Given team you have one of the 30 best play basketball players in the world why would the ball not be

In his hands as much as possible Right and two with the NBA rules three second all that stuff right it makes sense but sometimes I think maybe there’s an inefficiency in the marketplace where if a team just started running like that all the time be hard to guard it would be I mean

I but are but but in some ways I’m like maybe maybe it would just be wasted energy because you could just run a high pick and roll with tyres Halbert that’s a fact that is a fact I I mean I kind of just think when you go to Golden State

Yeah and obviously they I’ll put Sacramento in there right now too for sure 100 they move really well um but you go to those teams and they’re top you know probably top five in the league in offense I don’t know about Golden State as of this moment

They were for sure you see it but I think you can definitely trickle that stuff in and obviously you’re not going to go away from high ball screens with your best play as you shouldn’t but if you could do actions around that even during that and I think it becomes even

Harder to guard some of the issue is just the continuity of players staying long enough that’s interesting potentially I see that because I think about Germany like we were talking about this before it’s like those guys Dennis and T they’ve played together since they were

13 so they know this and it’s like NBA teams it’s like people are getting paid they’re getting traded you know you hardly ever have the same team yeah I can see that I I do think like you can teach Concepts so I’ll give you an example like with Sacramento like sabonis is the

Hub you can run your initial action but they’re always going to get to a second action because the concept is we can always just go to a dho with sabonis right that’s going to create some level of movement that’s going to bring a second defender in um I I I think the

Buyin would be tough and part of the reason it’s like it’s actually it’s actually hard to play offense that way for 48 minutes in an NBA game it’s just hard I can see that did you realize how good ant was before playing with him there I mean I I

Knew I mean just because I mean basically our whole defensive scheme was when we played them to to stop him you know I think he just was talking about it on some uh they as him who’s one person that he wants to you know cook and he was like LeBron but they never

Let it happen cuz they’re always doubling um yeah I don’t know if I knew he was that good uh the Germany game in Abu Dhabi when he just took over in the second half um I remember he made a a baseline fade uh like double pump and I

Was I was on the right wing and I don’t know what everybody else was thinking at the time but I it was a close game I was just like everything went slow motion again I was just like that might be one of the best shots I’ve ever seen in

Person like the degree of difficulty time and score all that for him to you know have confidence in himself to shoot that and make that that was uh it was really impressive