The Los Angeles Lakers entered Game 4 facing a near must-win proposition as a loss would signal a perilous position to be in against a young and hungry Minnesota Timberwolves squad.
The Lakers lost Game 3 despite a heroic performance from LeBron James, so the sense of urgency was high for the team when Game 4 tipped off. As has been the case for most of the series, Los Angeles got off to a good start but Minnesota seemed to wear them down with their physicality and defense. Eventually, the Timberwolves outlasted the Lakers 116-113, forcing the purple and gold into a 3-1 series deficit.
Head coach JJ Redick has been forced to empty all the tricks in his bag in this series, with the most recent adjustment coming after halftime when he benched Jaxson Hayes in favor of Dorian Finney-Smith. It was a move that most had seen coming, but Redick wound up playing his second-half starters the rest of the way. That is the first time in the play-by-play era that one team has stuck with five players for the entire second half of a playoff game.
After the game, Redick admitted it wasn’t the plan to play that lineup the entire time and explained why he did it, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“No, it wasn’t planned but we just made the decision at halftime… We certainly played well enough to win and we gave the effort to win and…it’s not a planned thing to play five guys an entire second half. We asked them at the beginning of the fourth quarter, told them we had two extra timeouts, if you need a sub let us know. Those guys gave a lot.”
LeBrom James was part of the group and Redick had no regrets about playing the 40-year-old and the other four guys the entire second half:
“Not on that one. I think once you’ve kind of made that decision and they all are in, you’ve just got to trust them.”
It’s hard to fault Redick too much given the rest of the bench couldn’t contribute much, so he stuck with the five-man group that was able to keep pace with the Timberwolves. However, it was clear late in the fourth quarter that the players were gassed and Minnesota took advantage in crunch time.
With L.A. down to potentially its last game of the season, Redick and the coaching staff will need to figure out a way to execute on both ends despite utilizing a shortened rotation.
JJ Redick believes Lakers and Timberwolves were prepared for rock fight of a series
The Lakers and Timberwolves’ series hasn’t been very pretty at times, and JJ Redick acknowledged that both teams seemed prepared for a rock fight.
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