The Los Angeles Lakers returned to winning ways by beating the Memphis Grizzlies 128-121 at Crypto.com Arena on Friday, but head coach JJ Redick isn’t happy with everything he has seen. Redick had mentioned after their loss to the Houston Rockets on Christmas that the Lakers haven’t been organized offensively since LeBron James returned, and he was asked at Saturday’s practice if things had changed.
“Not at all,” Redick said. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what else to do. I do a lot of joysticking over there on the sideline. Yesterday I said, ‘Hey, let’s run Away Toss. You bring it up the left side. I want so and so in it.’ This was after a dead ball. It wasn’t like I was calling it on the fly. And we bring it up that side, and the person I want in the Away Toss isn’t over there.
“That’s happening so consistently right now,” Redick added. “I chalk it up to the holidays.”
A reporter wondered if the players were just forgetting the plays, and Redick had a rather blunt response to that.
“I wasn’t a guy that forgot plays,” Redick said.
Redick, of course, played 15 seasons in the NBA. He can usually relate to player mistakes and things along those lines, but is quite puzzled by what he has been seeing.
Redick has been criticized for putting his players on blast lately, but you can understand his confusion over their constant failure to follow simple instructions. Anyone in his shoes would be tearing their hair out.
The Lakers went into that Grizzlies clash having lost four of their last five games and were in desperate need of a win. They led by double digits on multiple occasions, but blew those leads and trailed in the fourth quarter. James and Luka Doncic then took over to get the Lakers over the line and avoid what would have been a brutal defeat.
Redick was asked for his thoughts on the Grizzlies game after seeing the film, and there were positives and negatives.
“Our half-court defense was really good, transition defense not good,” Redick stated. “Throw aheads were great for us. We’re one of the worst teams in the league at touching the paint. I think we’re 28th in the league in paint touch rate, but we’re number two when we get there. So last night was a relative for us. A very high paint touch rate game, and we scored 1.2 points per possession when we touched the paint.
“I think it was our highest paint touch rate since November 30th,” Redick continued. “So that was good. The other thing that stood out was we ran 12 ATOs last night, eight of which we didn’t run correctly. We tried to run two of them again, still didn’t run them correctly. One we tried to run a third time, didn’t run that correctly.
“So, just a lot of slippage with execution,” Redick added. “And you should be able to transfer 30 seconds of time delay from the clipboard to another. So that was kind of frustrating.”
Players not executing the plays he’s calling appears to be Redick’s biggest issue at the moment. The 41-year-old needs to figure out a way to sort that out quickly. Redick also has a little problem to deal with in Deandre Ayton being frustrated with his role in the offense. He understands why Ayton might not be too pleased and is looking to give him more touches moving forward.
The Lakers, who have now improved to 21-11, will face off against the Grizzlies again next at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday at 9:30 PM ET.
