Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick can run a little hot when things aren’t going correctly, and that was the case against the L.A. Clippers.
The Lakers lost to the Clippers, 103-88, as they couldn’t make up for the number of injuries to players, including Luka Doncic who was ruled out after the first half due to a leg contusion.
However, Redick and the Lakers also didn’t receive much help from the referees as there were several questionable calls that went against them.
After the loss, Redick sounded off on the officiating and called for the NBA to address the lack of consistency in calls as he has not been receiving feedback when reaching out to the league, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Overall, the consistency, it’s something I’m gonna talk with them about tomorrow. The consistency needs to be addressed. That needs to be addressed, and it will be. I think any coach, any player, what we ask for is consistency. That’s not to single any official out or any crew out, it’s not about that. We need to know what it is night to night. We’ve had a number, and this is where I get frustrated a little bit and I keep asking the league to please reach out to me and respond to every time I do the coach’s feedback thing, I don’t get any response from the league, nobody ever reaches out to me.
“The way we do challenges and the definitions of challenges and X, Y or Z and why you can or can’t, it’s different with every different crew. We’re supposed to have the guy at the replay center, whoever is in charge that night, we’re supposed to have some level of consistency. And the definitions just get changed every single night.”
There was also a play where Redick tried to challenge on what appeared to be a proximate foul on a ball out of bounds. He was told that he could not challenge that aspect, which he didn’t understand as that type of play has typically been allowed to be challenged:
“Yeah. Josh (Tiven) came to me and said, I don’t want you to waste your challenge, but there’s a chance that it’s two separate plays.’ Which, again, I’ve seen this happen where somebody’s trying to box a guy out, gets fouled, somebody goes over the back and there’s a clear foul, ball gets deflected off the defensive team. I’ve seen that challenged, and I’ve seen that work. So it’s not two separate plays. The ball is part of the play, the ball got loose because of the charge, and then it was deflected. It’s not two separate plays. That’s an insane definition. Insane.”
Redick has every right to be frustrated with the referees as there have been multiple cases recently of calls being missed. The Lakers draw fouls at one of the highest rates in the league, but that shouldn’t penalize them when other teams can’t defend without fouling.
It’ll be interesting to see how the NBA responds to Redick’s request as the Lakers aren’t the only team that should have a gripe with the inconsistency from the officiating crews.
JJ Redick credits Lakers defense
Redick has seemingly improved at getting his players to shake off rough beginnings to games. For example, the Lakers came out flat against the Jazz but turned things around in the second half to pull off a win.
Redick may demand a lot from his players, but he was happy to give them credit for responding defensively in the second half in Utah.
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