In case you've been living under a rock, Austin Reaves is having a pretty gosh darn good season, which includes a dominating performance against the Kings. DeMar DeRozan took that personally, particularly how many free throws Reaves got. But the problem is the Kings, not the officials.
During their October 26th faceoff, Reaves took it to the Sacramento Kings. He scored a personal best 51 points alongside 11 rebounds, nine assists, and two steals. He was only one assist off a triple-double. It was the exact performace LA needed with both LeBron James and Luka Doncic injured.
Where the Kings' concerns come up is in the free throw disparity. The Kings got 18 free throw attempts while the Lakers got 46. Reaves shot 22 free throws, sinking 21 of them. Reaves took more free throws than the entire Kings' roster combined in that game.
Kings head coach Doug Christie was dejected following tonight's loss to the Lakers. Like the players themselves, upset, mystified, frustrated by the 46-18 free throw differential. pic.twitter.com/HK8eApbpZY
— Sean Cunningham (@SeanCunningham) October 27, 2025
DeMar DeRozan was so infuriated by these numbers that he actually walked out of his post-game press conference, seemingly making it about the officiating. Head coach Doug Christie was equally annoyed by the differential, discussing how it's impossible to win games with that kind of disparity.
The Kings' are both right and wrong
No one is going to argue that something was off in the officiating. The referees did seem to be harder on the Kings with their calls than they were on Lakers. Austin Reaves in particular got the benefit of the doubt on a lot of calls, some of which just shouldn't have gone his way.
DeMar DeRozan has seen a lot over his 17 year NBA career, but apparently not a 46-18 free throw disparity.
— Matt George (@MattGeorgeSAC) October 27, 2025
Full postgame comments: pic.twitter.com/rBuxpWf9EA
It also doesn't change the fact that the Kings were playing bad basketball for the first half of the game. They were turning the ball over a lot. They were committing a lot of dumb fouls. Simply put, the Kings were not playing tight, efficient basketball. Yet, they were still in the game until the very end.
In the fourth quarter, the Kings finally started to tighten their gameplay up a bit. They were playing better basketball. But by that point, Reaves was already an absolute runaway juggernaut and there was no reigning him in. Once again, the Kings were a victim of their own lack of defense.
Both DeRozan and Christie are right about the foul calls being off, and the 46 free throws the Lakers shot making it impossible to get anything going. At the same time, you can't act surprised when your team plays sloppy basketball and pays the price for it.