Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick finally suffered his first home loss of the 2024-25 season after the team suffered a heartbreaker at the hands of the Orlando Magic.
Despite Orlando being shorthanded and on the second night of a back-to-back, they gave Los Angeles everything they could handle. The Magic have a lot of players with size and length and they bothered the Lakers on the offensive end for most of the night.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis were able to take over late in the fourth quarter, scoring enough to give the Lakers a lead before missed free throws did them in. Franz Wagner hit what ended up being the game-winning 3-pointer after Davis missed a pair of free throws, spoiling an incredible James performance.
Afterwards, Redick discussed the game and said that he liked the team’s execution though he lamented the missed free throws and how they covered Wagner on his 3-point attempt.
“I’d have to go re-watch every possession there in the last couple minutes,” Redick said. “Overall, I felt comfortable with our execution up until the missed free throws and the [Franz] Wagner three. Would say, don’t quote me on that, but just the general vibe right now, I’d have to go look at every possession but I thought we executed out reads.
“I thought we were conceding layups. We had the timeouts. Didn’t love the just the thought process and the mindset when Wagner hit the 3, because we talk all the time about just our ISOs. We don’t allow 3s in ISOs, obviously late-game, especially. The small thing on the last play. We got two options on that play. We got to one of them. Small thing, we could have been a little bit better, just in a quick rewatch, but the overall, I’ll live with the execution outside of the missed free throws and the Wagner three.”
Redick would go on to expand on hoe frustrating this loss was, especially due to the missed free throws.
“Every loss is frustrating. Every loss is frustrating. I thought, you know, we’ve, we’ve had, I guess, five, five losses now, you know there’s, there’s certain losses that you could point to a lack of effort, but like a lack of will and competitiveness and physicality to start a game and then you’re having to fight that. We’ve had that in a few, you know, the Phoenix game, and this game where it comes down to late game, and it can swing on a couple plays, and frankly, it’s swung on our missed free throws tonight.”
James and Davis found ways to create some separation in the fourth, with the two cleaning up the glass and leaking out for easy transition opportunities. However, the Magic fought hard and played a physical brand of defense that really disrupted the rest of the team and it showed in stats like offensive rebounding and second chance points.
Self-inflicted losses like this one will give Redick and the coaching staff plenty of things to reinforce at practice and shootaround, though now they can’t dwell on it as they have another important game on Saturday against the Denver Nuggets.
It was a brutal way to lose a game, especially considering how tight the standings are in the Western Conference. Even though it’s still relatively early in the 2024-25 season, these kinds of losses can come back to bite a team so now it’s up to the Lakers to bounce back.
JJ Redick says Dalton Knecht’s earned more minutes for Lakers
One of the few bright spots outside of the stars was Dalton Knecht, who continued his hot stretch. Although it’s up in the air if Knecht will remain in the starting lineup when Rui Hachimura comes back, JJ Redick said the rookie’s earned more minutes for the Lakers.
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