The Los Angeles Lakers have been reeling and things didn’t get much better when they went up north to play the Portland Trail Blazers.
The Lakers have been without Austin Reaves, but they also ruled out Luka Doncic, Deandre Ayton and Jaxson Hayes for the contest. Los Angeles went on to lose 132-116 and it was never particularly close as they couldn’t get any stops.
Head coach JJ Redick didn’t seem to have many answers schematically given who was available to play, but the officiating also didn’t help. The Trail Blazers shot 22 free throws in the first quarter alone, and there were some peculiar calls and reviews throughout the game.
After the loss, Redick detailed the frustration with the lack of consistency with officiating, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“There’s always gonna be fouls. You can sit there and go through and like watch every single play, I do it sometimes. I watch film and I’ll watch a play and it’s like can we rewind that, zoom in, slow it down. And you’re like yeah, the officials don’t have that luxury. So it’s more about the way the game is called. They got off to a bad start tonight, and they admitted that to me. And then they just kind of like were all over the map. Making calls and not actually making a call. That happened multiples times where we had to go over and ask what’s going on. ‘What’s the actual call here?’ Couldn’t get great communication from Pat all night, which we’ll put in the coach’s feedback. It was interesting. I’ve talked about it, it’s not to single them out, or it’s not the reason we lost. It’s just for whatever reason, and you have to probably ask the other 29 coaches, it feels like the inconsistency night to night within a game has been there for most of these crews.”
LeBron James chimed in on the officiating and how it affected the Lakers’ comeback efforts:
“I thought defensively we had some keys that we wanted to do. We wanted to press up on them, but also keep guys in front of us and make them shoot contested 2s and contested 3s off the dribble and they nailed a lot of them. I thought the whistle was very short in the first quarter. I think it was like [22] free throws in the first quarter. It’s hard to set your defense with that type of situation. We gave ourselves a chance a couple times, but it was an uphill battle.”
The NBA has allowing more physical play with foul numbers down across the board in recent weeks. Because of that, James felt like the physicality the team played with didn’t warrant so many whistles:
“Every game should be a tone of physicality. I didn’t think we were doing something that was outlandish or warranted of certain calls or whatever the case may be. I thought we got bodies in front of guys and there were just a couple calls that were difficult. But that’s the game, get ready for tomorrow.”
James also admitted he feels like the refereeing has no rhyme or reason to it:
“Yeah. Every night is different.”
It sounds like an excuse to call out the officials in the midst of a rough patch, but Redick and James both have valid points when it comes L.A.’s luck with calls. However, the team still needs play better on both ends and can’t have the officials dictate their effort.
JJ Redick acknowledges opposing teams will give Lakers best shot every night
The Lakers will always have a target on their back by virtue of being one of the NBA’s most popular franchises. Redick even acknowledged that opposing teams will give Los Angeles their best shot every night and they need to be prepared for it.
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