The Los Angeles Lakers are about to start the second half of their 2025-26 NBA season post the All-Star break, and head coach JJ Redick has sent a message to his players. Redick spoke to the media at practice on Thursday, where he shared his optimism for the remaining 28 games of the season.
“My messaging this morning to the players was that this is going to be a sprint,” Redick said. “These last 28 games. It’s another segment of the season where, starting tomorrow, we won’t have more than a day between games until the end of March. So, we’ve got an opportunity to, I think, play our best basketball after the All-Star break.
“And we’ve got a number of indicators on both sides of the ball that we’re doing some things that are trending in the right direction,” Redick added. “And I think it’s coming at a good time as we’re getting fully healthy.”
Redick was pleased with the Lakers entering the break with a 33-21 record, which was good enough to be fifth in the Western Conference. They have done this well despite their Big 3 of Luka Doncic, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves playing only 10 games together so far this season.
James, Doncic, and Reaves are finally healthy now and are ready to help make that push for a team that Redick believes is trending in the right direction as is. The 41-year-old was asked about the indicators he was referring to and pointed out the areas where the Lakers have done well lately.
“Well, I mean, defensively, since we went to zone, the last 14 games, we’ve been much better,” Redick said. “When we have been in our zone, started possessions in our zone, we’ve been the number one half-court defense. Our transition possessions allowed are going down. I think a lot of that has to do with sprinting back into our zone.
“Offensively for us, we’ve had some of our highest paint touch rate games, and we’ve proven that when we touch the paint, we’re elite,” Redick continued. “And we’ve got to continue to build on that. And I think we’ve shown that when we pass the ball, and we trust each other, and we generate not just potential assists, but assists, and connect that way that we win basketball games.”
Coming into this season, defense was viewed as the Lakers’ biggest weakness, and they struggled massively on that front at the end of 2025. Their 122.4 defensive rating for December ranked 29th in the league, and to say that isn’t a recipe for success would be an understatement.
Redick had to make changes and opted to go for the zone. There has indeed been some improvement since. The Lakers have a 112.7 defensive rating over their last 14 games, which ranks 13th in that span. They are still not great, but are looking a lot better than they were before. As for why this zone is working for the Lakers, Redick touched on that as well.
“It starts with setting 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 it for a loop.
“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,” Redick continued. “But it’s been a good tool for us, and we recognize that we’re going to have to play man at points. We’re going to have to play 15 at points and switch one through five.
“We’re going to have to play some zone at points, and we’re going to have to put two on the ball at some point versus certain players,” Redick added. “Like we did against Jamal Murray when we played Denver the last time. So I think with this group, it’s not going to be one thing. We’ve got to continue to be adaptable and search for the right answer in the middle of the game.”
It will be very interesting to see what this Lakers defense is looking like as we get to the business end of the season. The widespread belief has been that their defense will prove to be their downfall in the playoffs. Will they prove the doubters wrong? It seems unlikely, but time will tell.
We’ll see the Lakers in action for the first time after the break against the Los Angeles Clippers at Crypto.com Arena on Friday at 10 PM ET.
