The Los Angeles Lakers had a chance to tie the game late against the Houston Rockets, trailing by three points with 7.1 seconds remaining. Head coach JJ Redick drew up a play, but the Rockets defended it well and LeBron James tried to call a timeout, but the officials didn’t see it and Max Christie would unfortunately throw the ball away, sealing a loss for the Lakers.
It was not the way the Lakers wanted to end the game after fighting back from a 22-point first half deficit and to not even be able get a shot off was disappointing. But the fact that the timeout call wasn’t seen and recognized didn’t sit well either.
LeBron spoke about this after the game, saying he saw things going wrong and feels he called timeout while the ball was still in Christie’s hand. However, he wouldn’t go so far to say that final play was the reason the Lakers lost the game, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Absolutely. That’s why I called the timeout, because I saw it go wrong. They played it good, they stayed on top of everything. I saw Fred shoot the gap on me and I called timeout I think before, Max definitely still had the ball in his hands. Wasn’t rewarded, but that happens. We didn’t lose the game because of that… He said he was looked at the ball.”
Redick, meanwhile, lamented the Lakers’ failure to execute the out of bounds play, especially considering how good the team has been in these situations all year long, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Didn’t execute. We had actually four ATOs we didn’t execute and it’s shocking to me. We came into this game No. 2 in the league in BBP on ATOs, we’ve done great all year. Three times before that we just didn’t do what we were supposed to do. I don’t know. That’s hard.”
Whether the timeout should’ve been given to the Lakers or not, there were a number of other factors which contributed to the Lakers loss in Houston and both LeBron and Redick will be focused on fixing those mistakes before they take the court again.
JJ Redick: Lakers’ failure to rebound was difference in the game
Perhaps the biggest issue for the Lakers against the Rockets, and undoubtedly the one that JJ Redick felt cost them most, was their struggles to clear the defensive glass. The Rockets had 18 offensive rebounds, 13 of those coming from Stephen Adams and Amen Thompson and in the eyes of Redick, that was the difference.
Redick noted that the Lakers made shots, but felt their inability to rebound was the difference in the game. The Lakers coach noted how difficult it is to keep Adams off the glass and doesn’t feel it was strictly a matter of effort, but ultimately felt rebounding and some untimely turnovers cost his team.
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