Despite all the injuries the Los Angeles Lakers have endured during the 2025-26 season, head coach JJ Redick has managed to keep the team afloat. Redick himself struggled to assess the first half of the season due to players being in and out, but did acknowledge they have been making some progress.
The Lakers enter the second half of the season with a 33-21 record, good for fifth place in the Western Conference.
Redick has had to lean on his star trio to get Los Angeles’ offense going, but defensively the team is still a work in progress.
Recently, Redick and the Lakers have incorporated more zone defense looks against teams and he broke down why he thinks it’s been working.
“I think it starts with setting up our defense and just eating up some clock,” Redick said. “We looked this morning, we did a bunch of stuff with our analytics group. It’s not like teams are vastly underperforming from the midrange or from three. I think some of the underperformance from three has to do with just breaking up a little bit of the flow of the game if that’s what you mean by throwing them for a loop. I think just the rhythm and running your sets that you’re running…some teams run their sets, some teams run their zone offense.
“It just depends on the team, but it’s been a good tool for us and we recognize that we’re gonna have to plan man at points, we’re gonna have to play 15 at points and switch one through five, we’re gonna have to play some zone at points, and we’re gonna have to put two on the ball at some point versus certain players. Like we did against Jamal Murray when we played Denver the last time. I think with this group it’s not gonna be one thing. We’ve gotta continue to be adaptable and search for the right answer in the middle of the game.”
Redick also acknowledged that this year’s zone defense seems to be their version of man defense last year.
“Last year our man was zone and this year our zone is man, so it’s not incredibly complicated,” he said.
As Redick noted, the Lakers will have to switch up their coverages depending on matchups but for now, there’s no reason to move away from a zone defense that is at least slowing down opponents.
JJ Redick not taking LeBron James for granted
LeBron James is turning in another fine season in Year 23, an unprecedented feat that a former player like JJ Redick can appreciate. James continues to be an outlier in NBA lore which is why Redick isn’t talking him for granted.
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