On Friday night, the Los Angeles Lakers were able to snap their two-game losing streak, with the team traveling to Scotiabank Arena and getting the win over the Toronto Raptors.
Although the Lakers led by 26 points and seemed to be well on their way to crushing the Raptors on the home floor to secure the team’s fourth win of the season, LeBron James and company let the short-handed Toronto get back in the game and cut the deficit to single digits.
Despite letting the Raptors claw their way back into the game, Los Angeles was able to seal the deal in the fourth quarter and pull out the six-point win, resulting in the team improving to 4-2 on the season. Even though superstar big man Anthony Davis stole the show with a season-high 38 points, 11 rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocks, veteran point guard D’Angelo Russell had a decent game, finishing with 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting.
After the game, head coach JJ Redick talked about Russell and how he’s been one of the more vocal leaders on the team this season, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“I would say he’s been one of the more vocal leaders on our team, and that goes back all the way to before training camp on the days that he was in the gym,” Redick said. “It’s one of the challenges that I gave him the first day he came in the gym and he was using his voice and he was energetic. We talked about it afterwards and I said that’s gotta be your standard, that’s gotta be who you are every day regardless of if shots are going in or not or if you get subbed out at the end of a game.
“Look, he played really well tonight. He’s gonna have a lot of good games where he plays really well. His spirit has not diminished at all with any sort of, whatever you want to call it, shooting struggles to start the season. He’s been fantastic and I think for all of our guys, it’s a great example. It’s something that we talked about with a number of our older players; it’s like you gotta be a leader with these young guys and help pick them up. Give them some confidence, and it’s great to hear DLo did that.”
With Russell being one of the more criticized players on the team over the last couple of years, the veteran journeyman deals with a lot of pressure from game to game, which can be difficult as he tends to be the fall guy when things start to go wrong for this Lakers team.
However, the one-time All-Star seems to be handling things a bit differently this season while becoming a vocal leader, which has clearly impressed his new head coach and is a step in the right direction for the veteran floor general.
Lakers guards D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves get minutes tweaked
JJ Redick decided to shake things up after consecutive losses by pairing D’Angelo Russell with Anthony Davis more while getting Austin Reaves on the floor more with LeBron James.
Although it remains to be seen what the long-term impact will be of this change, the Lakers were able to snap their losing streak against the Toronto Raptors on Friday night.
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