Austin Reaves trolling Patrick Beverley with ‘too small’ gesture is best part of Lakers beating Bulls

As if he wasn’t already a big fan favorite, Austin Reaves hitting Patrick Beverley with a “too small” gesture in Wednesday’s Lakers win over the Bulls may have elevated him to cult icon status.

In the closing stages of Sunday’s loss by the Lakers against the Bulls, Patrick Beverley did what he does best and started trolling. It was a bold move for a man that was going to see the same team again three days later and one that, shockingly, didn’t pan out well for him.

But on a list of players to get revenge for the Lakers in this situation, I doubt many would have had Austin Reaves doing the deed.

As they were capping off their own bounce-back victory and exacting some revenge in Chicago on Wednesday, Reaves scored over Beverley and returned the message to the former Lakers guard.

After the game, Reaves talked about dropping the “too small” gesture on Beverley and claimed he didn’t plan it out during the game.

On Sunday, Beverley was all over the place to make sure everyone knew the Bulls got the better of the Lakers. In addition to the “too small” gesture after scoring in the same vicinity as LeBron James, he also trash-talked Shannon Sharpe on the sideline, too.

Well before the two meetings this week, Beverley spoke about wanting to eliminate the Lakers from the playoffs, a mission he spent months working on while he was donning purple and gold this season. With another chance to do that on Wednesday and really solidify his trash talk, though, Pat Bev finished with 0 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal and 1 turnover in 25 minutes and a game-worst plus-minus of minus-32.

Turns out the only thing that was too small on Wednesday was Beverley’s impact on the game.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.