Player Grades: Lakers vs. Jazz

Assessing every Lakers player’s performance from the team’s 131-99 win over the Jazz

The juggernaut Lakers of the In-Season Tournament continued their historic run in the competition's inaugural year on Tuesday by routing the Jazz, 131-99. The purple and gold finished a perfect 4-0 in group play and, barring some wild blowouts in the final games of group play, will be the No. 1 seed in the knockout rounds for the Western Conference.

For a number of reasons, it was a welcome and enjoyable victory. With a game on Wednesday against Dallas, having your key players play low minutes was a huge win in itself on the evening.

Let’s grade the win. As always, grades are based on expectations for each player. A “B” grade represents the average performance for that player.

Cam Reddish

5 minutes, +4

No grade for Reddish on the night as, quite disappointingly, he limped to the locker room with an injury in the first quarter. He never returned due to what the team called groin soreness and, without a diagnosis, it certainly didn’t look good for his prospects of playing vs. Dallas.

LeBron James

24 minutes, 17 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds, 6-10 FG, 3-5 3PT, 2-2 FT, +14

The only stat that really matters in this one was the 24 minutes played. LeBron was as he has been this season: efficient, dominant, everything. But he sat for most the second half and, hopefully, that spells good things for Wednesday.

Grade: A-

Anthony Davis

29 minutes, 26 points, 16 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 11-14 FG, 4-5 FT, +34

A thoroughly dominant performance from AD against a Jazz team that just had zero answer for him. With Walker Kessler out, Utah had no one who could match up to him and it showed.

He padded the stats a bit in the 3rd quarter as the game got away but it doesn’t change how much he imposed his will.

Grade: A

Taurean Prince

31 minutes, 4 points, 1 assist, 1 block, 1-8 FG, 0-4 3PT, 2-3 FT, +26

Boy, Taurean Prince is just not shy about chucking away while in a huge slump. Including Tuesday, Taurean Prince is now shooting a sizzling 16.2% from the 3-point line on 37 attempts. He has six makes, or only twice as many as Max Christie in that stretch despite playing 160 more minutes.

He won’t be removed from the starting lineup because of his defense and the Lakers’ lack of wings, but boy he’s making it harder and harder to keep him as a starter.

Grade: D

D’Angelo Russell

26 minutes, 20 points, 8 assists, 3 rebounds, 1 block, 7-9 FG, 3-4 3PT, 3-5 FT, +30

There might need to be a bit of an asterisk on D’Lo and Austin Reaves’ stats as they padded them quite a bit in the fourth. Russell, though, was impressive throughout and continued his overall strong play this season.

Grade: A-

Rui Hachimura

28 minutes, 12 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 4-13 FG, 2-5 3PT, 2-2 FT, +21

It was a weird game for Rui. Overall, I thought he played well and got in good positions throughout the game. But when it came to the actually making shots part, he struggled.

I’ll take good process over good results any day of the week as it’s certainly more sustainable.

Grade: B-

Austin Reaves

26 minutes, 19 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 7-13 FG, 1-4 3PT, 4-4 FT, +10

As with D’Lo, the stats look a little bit better because of the fourth quarter. However, he still played well leading up to that. There are still some learning curve moments with him as a primary creator but the turnovers are at least going down in that regard.

Grade: A-

Christian Wood

27 minutes, 16 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 6-7 FG, 1-2 3PT, 3-3 FT, +13

A nice Get Right game for Wood on Tuesday as he hopefully found a bit more of a rhythm. Again, some of his points came in the fourth quarter but those minutes could be more valuable to a player like him that was struggling to score in recent games.

Grade: B+

Max Christie

25 minutes, 7 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 3-8 FG, 1-5 3PT, +10

After struggling in the first half in Reddish’s spot, I thought the second half was probably the best stretch of play for Christie this season. Akin to Wood, getting minutes with regular rotation guys and finding success even if it came in garbage time can be very beneficial.

And the Lakers are going to need Christie as, at least in the short term, as he’ll continue to take Reddish’s minutes.

Grade: C+

Jaxson Hayes

19 minutes, 10 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 4-4 FG, 2-3 FT, -2

It’s hard to finish with a negative plus-minus in a game you won by 32 points. Hayes excelled against an undersized Jazz team but there wasn’t much to take away from this game that wasn’t already known.

Grade: B

Darvin Ham

There isn’t much to critique or discuss in a huge win like this from a coaching perspective. The Lakers did a good job of keeping their foot on the gas and finished a perfect 4-0 in In-Season Tournament play.

One thing of note is that Jalen Hood-Schifino has actually been active in recent games, including Tuesday, but hasn’t been used. Perhaps the team wants him to get G League minutes, but he also hasn’t been with the G League team recently while Maxwell Lewis has.

Friday’s inactive: Jarred Vanderbilt, Gabe Vincent, Maxwell Lewis, Colin Castleton. D’Moi Hodge, Alex Fudge

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.