The Los Angeles Lakers secured home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs with a dominant 101-73 win over the Phoenix Suns at Crypto.com Arena on Friday. At worst, the Lakers will now be the fourth seed in the Western Conference, and head coach JJ Redick stated in his postgame press conference that he is proud of what they have accomplished, considering the circumstances.
“I would say I’m extremely proud of our team, our players, and our coaches for dealing with the entire NBA season,” Redick said, via The Sporting Tribune. “I think for maybe one or two teams a year, they don’t have a lot of ups and downs, and their rollercoaster is fairly flat, but for almost every team in the NBA, your ability to bounce back from failure is the key to the aggregation of what your season is.
“You hope you can win 50+ games,” Redick continued. “And you hope you can get home court in the first round and be a top seed. I know none of you guys had us in the top 4 to start the season. That’s just the reality. Most people had us as a play-in team, or even worse.
“We’ve had to manage the expectations of the Lakers and also the negativity that just naturally surrounds every loss,” Redick added. “And I think our group has managed that well.”
Now, not everyone was a believer in these Lakers. There were serious doubts about whether they could finish in the top four, but no one thought they would miss the play-in tournament. A team with Luka Doncic, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves was never finishing outside the top 10 in the West.
You wonder who these people are that Redick was referring to here. The most pessimistic predictions had the Lakers battling for the sixth seed to avoid the play-in tournament. Redick deserves credit for ensuring they haven’t had to worry about dropping down for quite a long time now, especially with how much time the big guns have missed.
Doncic and Reaves have played 64 and 51 games, respectively, and were ruled out for the rest of the regular season last week with injuries. James just played his 59th game against the Suns, and for the Lakers to still be 52-29 on the season is quite remarkable. Redick hopes whatever happens in the playoffs doesn’t take away from the fact that they did ever so well in the regular season.
“Every year I’ve ever been in the NBA, your goal is to win a championship,” Redick stated. “That’s your goal. And when you represent the Lakers and you play for the Lakers, and you coach the Lakers, that’s their goal every year. That’s our fans’ goal every year.
“Let’s not discredit what this group did for the regular season, regardless of what happens in the playoffs,” Redick continued. “Because to clinch home court and to win 52 games, possibly 53 games, and deal with the amount of adversity we had not just with injuries, but again with the loudness that is just going to be out there with our team because it’s the Lakers.
“It’s a credit to our players, it’s a credit to our staff for just persevering and just keeping our head down and doing the work,” Redick continued. ” Coached a bunch of different ways this year. Our players had to adjust. Players made sacrifices. A lot of these guys, as I talked about, are in contract years. And it’s been, I think, for everybody a really great opportunity to grow as players, as coaches, as people.”
There is a real chance that all this good work in the regular season will ultimately go to waste. Doncic and Reaves might not be available for the first round of the playoffs, and Redick realizes teams want to face the Lakers for that reason. They will be heavy underdogs regardless of who they play, and it’s going to take a Herculean effort from the coaching staff and the players to pull off the upset.
Before that, though, the Lakers will play their final regular-season game against the Utah Jazz at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday at 8:30 p.m. ET.
