The NBA playoffs kick off on April 18 and the Los Angeles Lakers are unfortunately limping to the finish line from a health perspective. Head coach JJ Redick is doing everything he can to galvanize his team with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves expected to miss part of all of the first round, but replacing two players of that caliber is nearly impossible.
The Western Conference standings have been tight all year and now that the final weekend of the regular season is here, teams are trying to be strategic by resting or playing key players to try to set up the ideal matchup of their choosing. And with that, Redick understands that teams likely are hoping to play the injury-riddled Lakers in the first round.
“Clearly there’s some teams that are… I’m sure everyone wants to play us, let’s get that out there. Everybody wants to play us,” Redick said before Friday’s win over the Phoenix Suns. “There’s probably teams that are in position where they can start looking forward to potential second-round matchups as well. We’ve seen some of those teams rest their entire lineup basically. We can’t be concerned with all of that. Again, I’ll say what I told the team yesterday and what I told you guys after the game, we have to figure out the formula and the belief for this group to be successful. So that’s our focus for tonight, and that’s gonna be our focus on Sunday.”
As Redick mentioned, his focus for the Lakers is finding the right lineups and rotations that can work without Doncic and Reaves as opposed to seeding. He recently made it known that he is looking for nine players that will fight and the Lakers need to shift their identity to be a scrappy team.
After Friday’s games, there is a lot more clarity on seeding heading into the regular-season finale. Whoever plays the Lakers, which will be the Houston Rockets or Minnesota Timberwolves, will have to come to L.A. to do it to start as they clinched home-court advantage in the first round. They still could climb as high as third, but they can’t fall below fourth.
Deandre Ayton appreciates when JJ Redick calls him out
When Redick landed this job with the Lakers, he lacked coaching experience but as a former player, he knew how to talk to current players to get the best out of them.
One big characteristic of his is holding players accountable and not sugarcoating things. That has been the case with big man Deandre Ayton, who recently said he actually appreciates Redick calling him out to get the best out of him.
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