The Los Angeles Lakers’ five-game road trip came to a much-needed end on Wednesday night with a 131-114 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. After a hot start to the season, head coach JJ Redick is seeing his first real test after a 1-4 stint away from Los Angeles. And the question becomes what can the Lakers learn from this stretch.
L.A. could easily point to missed shots as a reason for their loss on Wednesday, or the fact that they were without two starters in Anthony Davis and Rui Hachimura. But they have not taken that approach, instead focusing on tangible things that need to be fixed.
Redick went into detail on what he felt went wrong for the Lakers against the Grizzlies and how the focus wasn’t necessarily there for the team.
“It’s no secret that they were gonna push the pace,” Redick said. “We got to get back, get matched up in transition. I believe in that first half they had nine points after makes where we either jogged back, we didn’t get matched up, we stabbed at the ball twice. Talked a lot about how they’re gonna crash, they’re gonna send multiple guys.
“Didn’t really have good attention to detail. There were segments of the game where I thought we did, we talked about not allowing the ball to come middle. If you do, they run a wheel action, it’s really good offense. Killed us on that. Got corner 3s, got back cuts, allowed the ball to get middle too much. So you’re gonna lose.”
Redick was blunt in his assessment of what the Lakers can take away from the 1-4 road trip, largely focusing on the focus and motivation of each individual player.
“It goes back to choices. I think that’s something that we’ve discussed as a group. You’ve got a choice every night for how you play. It has nothing to do with making shots. There’s got to be a group of people, seven or eight guys, that make that choice and we’re a really good basketball team. If we have a handful, two or three, we’re not gonna be a good basketball team that night. That’s just the reality. That’s my biggest takeaway, to be honest.”
However, Redick is no stranger to being an NBA sharpshooter and having both on and off nights. And he tried to give some advice to his players who are going through slumps shooting the ball.
“I can’t speak to them. I can’t put myself in their brains. I don’t think there’s every been a basketball player that’s stepped on the floor and said man, I really hope I miss all my shots tonight. Or I hope I struggle shooting. It’s tough to go through it. It’s tough to have a bad shooting night and when it starts compounding, it can really start to weigh on you.
“I had some mental things that I would try to get myself out of it, just speaking of me. There’s times where you’re in that and it’s like man, I’m never gonna make another shot again. Those thought come into your brain. You have to have sort of the mental toughness to just keep shooting and have the belief. I told a number of players that I played with when I got older and I was like 8-for-12. It’s gonna regress towards the positive at some point and you’re gonna have an 8-for-12 night.”
The Lakers finally return home with the hope that they can break out of the shooting slump and get back to the winning ways that started the season. Redick is certainly going to focus on attention to detail and reminding his players of the energy they need to go out with every single night.
LeBron James discusses Lakers missing open looks
Plenty of the Lakers misses were not necessarily well-contested. The Grizzlies did not play elite defense, causing the Lakers to struggle. It was more self-inflicted wounds on that end of the floor. And LeBron James spoke about the feeling that gives L.A.
“Obviously when you’re getting good looks and they’re not going down, I think it can be demoralizing for us as a group and for individuals at times. But guys kept shooting when they were open. We just haven’t gotten it going from the outside as a collective group.”
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