The Los Angeles Lakers are gearing up for their second game of the 2025-26 regular season. After losing to the Golden State Warriors in their season opener, they face the team that eliminated them from last year’s playoffs, the Minnesota Timberwolves.
L.A. was favored heading into that first round matchup, but it was clear almost immediately that they were outmatched by the bigger, more athletic and more physical Timberwolves. L.A. lost in five, souring an end to head coach JJ Redick’s successful first season with the Lakers.
Both teams made slight changes to their roster in the offseason, but their rematch on Friday night includes nearly all of the major players from that series. Redick discussed his regrets from last year’s series and the message to his team going into Friday’s rematch.
“I’ve talked about it a number of times, but the biggest regret I have is basically from the moment we secured the third seed on that Friday night against Houston through when we played Game 1 at home on Saturday, I would have done that completely different… I’ll be honest, I got into a little bit of a rabbit hole last night on film, it was crazy.
“I actually at one point was watching inverted pick-and-rolls when I was in Philly and Marcus was top blocking me and Al Horford shoved him and I sent him the clip. But I also was watching a lot of our stuff from that series and I would say this, after Game 1 our guys played so hard. And this group has to build a habit of playing that hard every single night. We didn’t start that was (last year). We played really hard game one against Minnesota last year on Opening Night with that group and then it didn’t really become our habit until later in like late January. So that’s the biggest takeaway from watching that stuff is like we gotta get back to that.”
One of the benefits of having a former player like Redick as a head coach is that he can put himself in the minds of his players going into big matchups. And that’s exactly what he did with this one, looking back on rematches of his own after being eliminated from the playoffs the year prior.
“There definitely was,” Redick said of him having extra motivation going into these types of matchups. “We played the Celtics two years in a row when I was in Orlando. I remember the next season after we lost to Houston in L.A. when we were up 3-1. There was a lot of motivation the next time we played Houston and when we lost to Boston when I was in Philly that following year, I think we played them on Opening Night. So yeah, it’s gonna be there.
“I don’t know that there needs to be a ton of reminders other than what I just talked about, which is hey, there very likely will be some clips from that series and this is what our team looked like at this time last year, we’re gonna get to this at some point this year of playing this hard. But this is what the standard is gonna be and hopefully we reach that standard at some point.”
Redick and the Lakers will need to make some major adjustments from last playoffs if they want to beat a Timberwolves team that is still almost entirely intact. Their only loss was backup point guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Anthony Edwards looked to be his same dominant self in his season opener.
Hopefully, the Lakers will bring a renewed energy to avoid an 0-2 start to the season.
JJ Redick lays out goals for 2025-26 season
JJ Redick’s stellar first season earned him a contract extension with the Lakers, although that doesn’t mean the pressure to succeed will go away.
When you’re coaching the Lakers, the expectation will always be to compete for championships. That is especially the case this season as Luka Doncic is in the prime of his career and LeBron James is in what could be his final season with the team. Additionally, L.A. addressed their needs this offseason by bringing in Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia.
Even though expectations are always high though, Redick tried to take a measured approach when he was asked about his goals for his second season as a head coach.
“I don’t really have a goal for myself, it’s a goal for the Lakers. It’s a goal for our group,” Redick said before the season opener against the Golden State Warriors. “My goal is for us to win as many days as possible and enjoy doing that. I say this all the time… I judge myself by, did I maximize the group? And did people enjoy coming in the building and going to work every day? If the answer to those two questions is yes, then I did a good job as a coach.”
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