JJ Redick seemed to have it all figured out in the early part of the season. Despite not having any coaching experience in the past, Redick was doing a great job with the Lakers, leading them to a great record in the West. But now having lost six of his last eight games as head coach, Redick expressed his frustration regarding his team’s performances during his press conference after a 134-93 loss to the Heat.
“I can’t physically get us organized. I can’t physically call our reads and call out coverages. I’m not blaming players. I won this. But I need some ownership on the court as well.”
Reddick also spoke about other subjects during his press conference, which you can check out below.
On the togetherness of his team:
“There’s not a sense from me that we’re together right now. That’s what we say in the huddle. Doesn’t feel that way. We’re in a tough stretch. We’re all trying to find it.”
On what has gone wrong this season defensively:
“There were a couple [possessions] where we weren’t in rotation. It’s funny because it felt like earlier in the year we were having trouble at the point of attack. But we’ve actually been better there. Now we’re having a lot of trouble with our transition defense.”
“Overall we’ve been better there. We’re having trouble on both ends with base-level game-plan stuff. It’s very odd. I don’t know if that’s because of travel or the lack of practice time, but to really not execute… The answer to that is probably next week. It’s an opportunity for us to be in the gym and get some practice time with us not making the cup. We’ll do that.”
What he expects from LeBron James and Anthony Davis:
“Bron and I spoke this morning, we had a nice conversation… I thought… He was very talkative with his teammates, he was encouraging them. I need him to uplift his teammates. A lot of us, we’re going through it right now.”
“I think with AD, he’s not had the performances that he had to start the year. There’s a level of frustration. But he’ll get out of it, I have no doubt.”
“We say this with most teams. They just bullsh*t up. We just have to be physical on both sides of the ball. To start the game, they really took us out of what we were trying to do. And we didn’t match that level of physicality. And that can sort of get frustrating for a player.”
Whether he is calm about what needs to be done:
“Calm? Yeah, this is problem-solving. Obviously, when you lose by 41, the problems are glaring and you gotta get with the group and fix it. Nothing wrong with that. I’m calm about that.”
How he plans on fixing the Lakers’ problems:
“Good question. I’ll talk about with my staff. Certainly talk with the group. Certainly talk with the individual guys. We have good guys and we have guys that want to win and want to play the right way.”
“Figuring out how to do that together, that’s the challenge for almost any team. When you can do it, and we’ve done it, you just want to get back to that, and we will.”
You could see and hear the frustration from Redick’s expressions and tone tonight. A 41-point loss to a middling Eastern Conference team is a big blow, and the Lakers’ problems were on full display tonight. Going forward, he will have to do a lot to make sure that things change.
The Lakers were abysmal tonight, both on the offensive and the defensive end of the court. The Lakers shot just 42.0% from the field, 22.7% from the three-point line, and 73.7% from the three-throw line. With poor efficiency numbers such as this, it is no surprise that they weren’t able to cross the 100-point threshold.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis have been underperforming during this stretch. Davis had the worst game of the season tonight, with just eight points, seven rebounds, five assists, and one steal, while going 3-14 from the field.
LeBron James did have a bounce-back game with 29 points, eight assists, five rebounds, and one steal, but did have five costly turnovers. James did admit that tonight’s outing and their recent slump were not the fault of the coaches.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Lakers need to make some moves before the trade deadline if they want to remain competitive in the West. It was reported that three of the Lakers’ key rotation pieces were on the trading block, and could be moved to bring in some upgrades to the team.
The Lakers will have a break for a few days until they play against the Hawks on Saturday night at 7:30 PM EST. They should use the next few days to recalibrate and zero in on what their problems as a team are.
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