Head coach JJ Redick brought out a new starting lineup for the Los Angeles Lakers’ game against the Memphis Grizzlies as Max Christie got the nod in the backcourt next to Austin Reaves. His primary task was to contain Grizzlies’ All-Star guard Ja Morant and Christie put in a stellar performance.
Obviously slowing someoone like Morant down takes a team effort, but Christie was was the point person and his efforts stood out. Morant finished with just 20 points on 6-of-21 shooting while also committing seven turnovers in the Lakers’ 116-110 victory.
Afterwards, Christie spoke on when he found out he would be starting, and his focus in defending Morant.
“He told me a little while before the game that I was gonna start and it was kind of just ‘You’re gonna start, we want you to bring energy and effort on the defensive end,'” Christie said. “Obviously my main assignment tonight was Ja Morant so my mind was kind of just focused on trying to make it as tough as I could for him. He’s a really dynamic player, he’s a really good player. So wanted to just do as good of a job as I can to just kind of make it tough for him. I thought I did a decent job of that tonight.”
It was a full team effort from the Lakers on both ends of the floor to come away with one of their best wins of the year. And if they want to keep that going moving forward, Christie feels it all starts on defense.
“I think it starts on the defensive end for us,” Christie added. “I think we did a really good job of just kind of keeping the ball in front for the most part. They’re really good at driving the ball middle, they’re really good at cutting when they drive middle, they have a good wheel action that they run.
“So I thought we did a decent job defending that and then offensively I thought we got to the free throw line a good amount and got a lot of layups and dunks, a lot of easy baskets, something we kind of emphasized as a team before the game, how we need some easy baskets. I think we got plenty of those tonight from dunks and layups and backdoor cuts and whatnot. Then Bron and AD, AD had a 40-point game. He’s phenomenal obviously on the offensive end so that helps. But Bron had a good game coming back, AR had a great game coming back. So it was a collection of a lot of things for sure.”
Anthony Davis undoubtedly led the way with his 40-point, 16-rebound performance, but Christie played his role very well and if he can continue to do so, and the Lakers get solid contributions from the rest of their role players, they will be a much better team as this season goes on.
JJ Redick happy with Lakers ‘gameplan discipline’ vs. Grizzlies
In previous losses, the Lakers have spoken about how they aren’t executing the gameplans given to them by JJ Redick and the coaching staff. But against the Grizzlies, Redick was very satisfied with the Lakers sticking to the plan.
“Against those guys, you have to play as hard as them at the very least to have the chance to win,” Redick said. “I thought our guys did that. I thought our gameplan discipline was really good.”
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