Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick is his biggest critic as he’s shown time and time again that he’ll take accountability when it’s warranted.
Redick recently admitted he wasn’t at his best during the Lakers’ rough stretch in December, attributing it to a rough patch mixed in with the holidays. Fortunately, Redick and the coaching staff have started to get back into a groove as they’ve found ways to get the group to play better on both ends recently.
Against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday, the Lakers had a real chance to come back and steal a victory after trailing for most of the night. Los Angeles and Milwaukee went back and forth in the final minutes, though it was the latter that wound up taking home the 105-101 victory.
There were several sloppy possessions in the final minute and Redick discussed what went wrong in the team’s first clutch time loss of the season and explained why he didn’t call a timeout before the final possession.
“I have to go back and watch it, but at the top of my head, we took the lead to go up four and then we came up empty on a number of possessions,” Redick said. “They weren’t like empty possessions, we were getting good looks. Didn’t score. Then we put them on the free throw line for the Kevin Porter play and the other, I think it was LeBron that fouled. So they end up getting four points there at the free throw line when we were quite frankly playing great defense for most of the entire second half. And then there’s a certain process that you follow in those situations, end of game. The first thing is always you tell the ref, make or miss I’m gonna call timeout. Not to make excuses, but Luka fouls out, I gotta get a sub in. Then we’re discussing if we want Vando in for rebounding, so we get another sub in.
“There’s one shot left and it’s like, we know it’s a short timeout, 16 seconds, need two (points), need three, felt like there was enough time to do a need two. So it’s like alright, then they miss and I jump up and I call timeout, they didn’t hear me, which I get. That’s like the third time this season that’s happened. And again, the process, I skipped a step there. And then once it got down, it was about six, seven seconds, maybe eight tops when it got across half court. I liked kind of what I saw, we won a game in Toronto like that. But coulda, woulda, shoulda, the reality is that the one step of the process, didn’t follow it. So I’ll take the blame on that.”
Redick also made sure to shout out Giannis Antetokounmpo, who came up with a block and steal on LeBron James in the closing moments to seal the win for the Bucks.
“Yeah, again the last play, I said to the team like we got a good advantage,” Redick said. “We created an advantage with the best player, our best player on the floor. And he made a hell of a play to get the back tap. And then the block was, again, we have that on the scouting report. You gotta have awareness on him and, I like the take and he made a hell of a defensive play. We’ve seen him do it a number of times.”
While it’s encouraging to hear Redick hold himself accountable for not putting the Lakers in better spots in crunch time, the result still stings. Los Angeles did a great job of battling back, but they wound up costing themselves the game after some unfortunate plays.
The momentum swung when Luka Doncic fouled Kevin Porter Jr. on a 3-point attempt and while the latter missed one of the free throws, James lost the basketball on the ensuing possession after Antetokounmpo poked it out.
It was a frustrating loss and one that Redick probably wants back, but it also serves as another reminder that the Lakers don’t have much margin for error. The upcoming schedule will be a gauntlet of matchups, so Redick needs to figure out how to steer the team back in the right direction.
JJ Redick praises Jake LaRavia and Jaxson Hayes
Part of the Lakers’ recent turnaround has been thanks to role players stepping up in Austin Reaves’ absence. Redick highlighted Jake LaRavia and Jaxson Hayes in particular, also going on to explain that great teams need at least nine or 10 guys to be successful.
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