The Los Angeles Lakers played on Saturday night without Austin Reaves, Luka Doncic, Jaxson Hayes or Deandre Ayton in the lineup. The result was head coach JJ Redick starting Maxi Kleber at center, Gabe Vincent at guard and using two-way players Drew Timme and Kobe Bufkin for a combined 51 minutes of action.
Despite Timme having a career game, the Lakers lost by 16 points and were annihilated on the boards. Timme was the team’s second-leading scorer with 21 points, despite not being in a regular NBA rotation since April of 2025.
But these types of games are somewhat familiar for L.A. this season. They have been without Reaves and LeBron James for significant stretches. Doncic has missed games, as have Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, Hayes and Ayton. And that’s exactly what Redick’s sentiment was after the loss on Saturday, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We don’t go into games thinking tonight is gonna be rough or we can’t win. Our belief level, expectations and standards don’t change. This has been like the normal all season. We’ve won some games, we’ve actually beaten a lot of good teams. You play a team the second time around sometimes and you rewatch the game and you’re like oh shoot, we didn’t have Austin that game, or we didn’t have Luka that game, or we didn’t have Rui that game, or we didn’t have DA that game. So this has just been our season. And every team is going through it, I’m not trying to say we’re singled out. This is just been our season. You get one guy healthy, another guy gets injured. You get another guy back, another gets injured, two guys go out so now you play without your two centers. Just been our season.”
Redick says that the Lakers are keeping the same mentality every game regardless of who is in or out of the lineup. However, the Lakers losing 15 of their 16 games this season by double figures shows they are quick to let a game get away from them.
Saturday night felt like a loss from the jump, and there was no significant push by L.A. throughout the game to make it a more manageable deficit. Hopefully, on Sunday, they can start to right the ship against the Toronto Raptors to avoid a stretch of 1-6 in seven games.
JJ Redick calls for Lakers to stay level-headed
Despite the recent losing stretch, Redick does not want the Lakers to cave or give up on wins until they are healthy. He called on the team to stay level-headed after blowout losses like Saturday.
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