JJ Redick took a gamble in the second half of the Los Angeles Lakers’ Game 4 contest with the Minnesota Timberwolves, playing Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura and Dorian Finney-Smith the entire 24 minutes without making any subs. It marked the first time in the play-by-play era that a team had done that in a postseason game.
Unfortunately, the gamble did not pay off as the Lakers choked away a late lead and lost to fall into a 3-1 series deficit. Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards sensed the Lakers were “gassed” down the stretch and Minnesota took advantage of it.
Redick was asked about that after practice on Tuesday and after watching the game film, he still felt that fatigue was not a factor for the Lakers’ fourth-quarter struggles.
“No. And you know what, looking back now, what have we scored, 19, 20, 13 in the fourth quarters? It’s a trend, more so than [fatigue]. Our two best players missed layups at the rim. I don’t think they missed layups because they were tired,” Redick said.
One other aspect of only playing five guys is it could affect the confidence of the other rotation players that usually get minutes but didn’t. Redick was not concerned about that either though.
“I spoke to everyone yesterday that would’ve potentially played in the second half. They all understood it. There was no issue with that,” he said.
Redick was not will to divulge what his starting lineup will be in Game 5, but there’s no doubt he will continue to stick with Doncic, Reaves, James, Hachimura and Finney-Smith when it matters. With the season on the line, those five need to be ready to play heavy minutes again on Wednesday, although it may be unwise to go to the extreme that Redick did in Game 4 considering the team needs to win three straight to advance.
The fourth quarter has been the difference so far in this series with Minnesota outscoring L.A. 105-69 in the four games. Regardless of it is due to fatigue or not, that will need to change moving forward for the Lakers to have a chance.
Luka Doncic: Fatigue shouldn’t be factor for Lakers
Not wanting to make any excuses, Luka Doncic agreed with JJ Redick that fatigue hasn’t played a factor for the Lakers down the stretch of games in this series against the Timberwolves.
“This is the playoffs. Fatigue shouldn’t play any role in this,” Doncic said after Game 4. “Played a lot of minutes, but it shouldn’t play a role. I think they just executed better on the defensive end during the last minutes.”
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