JJ Redick has had the Los Angeles Lakers as prepared as possible for their series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. L.A. has played two strong games and have held up well against the best team in basketball, but it hasn’t mattered toward the final result, as the Thunder hold a 2-0 series lead heading to L.A.
The Lakers have fallen a bit into the trap that many teams fall into against the Thunder, turning the ball over and allowing highly-efficient second-chance opportunities. They have also limited, but not eliminated, the runs that the Thunder can go on, and Redick is looking at all of it ahead of Game 3.
“Well, I talked about it a little bit yesterday. They were plus-nine in the non-Shai minutes and then in the second half, we just got blitzed. 32-14, seven turnovers, they shot 14 free throws during that stretch. We’ll look at lineups, we’ll look at everything to try to figure out how we can be better in those minutes.”
Turnovers have been a real issue for the Lakers, as they have coughed it up 39 times in two games so far this series. Redick explained that the Lakers need to remember how they played in the first round against the Houston Rockets to try and replicate that.
“We’re starting to see some trends here and we probably need to go back to the two keys we had against Houston, which was take care of the ball and box out,” he said. “Because it’s not a high volume, but they’ve killed us in two games. Every time they’ve gotten and offensive rebound, they’ve scored.”
The Rockets — especially with their injuries — were nowhere near the team that the Thunder are. But that doesn’t mean the Lakers can’t repurpose a similar game plan and focus. L.A. has been turning it over far too much, and plenty of the turnovers were unforced and not due to the Thunder’s suffocating defense.
Redick and the Lakers now return to Crypto.com Arena, where they’ll have two more chances to turn this into a legitimate series.
JJ Redick critical of officiating after Game 2
There were concerns about how the Thunder would be officiated in this series prior to it beginning. However, Game 1 had no issues and was a well-officiated game on both sides. Game 2 was not the same story, as the officiating led to significant complaints from nearly the entire Lakers bench, including Redick.
“I sarcastically said the other day they were the most disruptive team without fouling,” Redick said. “They have a few guys that foul on every possession, and all of the good defenses do. SGA get like a, I don’t even know, a touch foul on a drive.
“There was a stretch where like four straight possessions our guys got absolutely clobbered. Tried to make a entry pass to Jaxson and Jaylin Williams was grabbing his jersey with both arms, and [that ends up being] a turnover. They’re hard enough to play. They’re hard enough to play. You gotta be able to just call it if they foul. And they do foul.”
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