The Los Angeles Lakers are coming off a roller coaster of a road trip as they started off 1-2 with disappointing blowout losses to the Atlanta Hawks and Oklahoma City Thunder. They were able to bounce back and finish strong though, beating the New Orleans Pelicans and Milwaukee Bucks on back-to-back nights.
The Bucks win, in particular, was an impressive one as the Lakers were exhausted and shorthanded at the end of their trip but found enough energy to blow out Giannis Antetokounmpo and his squad.
Lakers head coach JJ Redick has tried to stay even-keeled through the ups and downs of the season, and he channeled the famous rapper Jay-Z to stress that to his team and give them and his staff praise for their performance in Milwaukee, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“I reference a lot, Hard Knock Life Volume 2, a classic Jay-Z album. There’s a song on there called ‘A Week Ago,’ and one of the lines, the main line, is ‘It was all good just a week ago.’ I told the team yesterday, a week ago from yesterday we were practicing in Atlanta, we were 7-2, we were feeling good about ourselves, and then you don’t play well for three games, a week in this league. This is the NBA and you gotta find moments to recapture what makes you a good basketball team and I think over the last 24 hours, we’ve done that. I think want to say a couple things about the game overall, I want to give a lot of credit to my staff. Sometimes with these turnarounds, the prep with the players becomes difficult. We met at 40 on the clock. We got in at 3 a.m. last night so we didn’t wanna overwhelm them when they were zombies at 12 p.m. so we met at 40 on the clock and I thought Coach Ty, Scotty, Greg, Drew Seifert, all of these guys that worked on the scout did a really good job of creating clarity for our team and we were able to go out and execute that, which is a credit to our guys.”
The Lakers have been able to compete regardless of who is in and out of lineup so far this season, which Redick believes will benefit them in the long run:
“It’s a confidence boost for the group. I think for certain players who, when we’re fully healthy may not play a ton of minutes or may not even be part of the rotation, it gives them a reference point. I think Nick Smith knows that we believe in him as a player. We’re calling isos for him against the Portland Trail Blazers, who have great wing defenders. So I think it’s great for the group. With the possibility of us getting healthy, that certainly makes us excited. But then like I told you guys in training camp, we had 24 starting lineups last year. The soft tissues injuries, all that stuff, it’s just part of the NBA whether we’ve had an illness run through the team, we’ve had a number of guys that have played through it and a number of guys that haven’t been able to play through it. So those things are just gonna happen throughout an NBA season. But togetherness with the group and the intent of the group every night outside of a couple games has been really good.”
Redick may be praising his players and coaching staff, but he also deserves a ton of credit for the Lakers’ 10-4 start. There is admittedly a lot of season left to go, but Redick has his team bought in and playing hard on a nightly basis so far.
Deandre Ayton excited about Lakers’ 10-4 start
After the win over the Bucks, Deandre Ayton couldn’t help but express his excitement about the Lakers’ 10-4 start to the season.
Ayton has been everything the team could have hoped for and more, and he deserves to celebrate after the latest win.
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