The Los Angeles Lakers extended their winning streak to nine by taking down the Orlando Magic 105-104 in a thriller at the Kia Center on Saturday. Lakers head coach JJ Redick was delighted by the win, but not with the officiating, as he fired some shots in his postgame press conference.
“So, down 2 and we get LeBron [James] open,” Redick said, via Spectrum SportsNet. “We actually just challenged this call in our last game, and the ball got initially hit. But then if LeBron still has possession of the ball and then gets fouled across the arm, that’s considered a foul. ‘Cause we challenged that, we lost that challenge.
“So again, another night where explanations get changed based on a whim,” Redick added. “We had to overcome a lot tonight, and by that, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
The Lakers were frustrated with the officiating all night, and the crew of Marc Davis, Sean Corbin, and Marat Kogut made a critical mistake right at the end of the game. Paolo Banchero quite clearly fouled LeBron James as he was attempting to tie the game in the final seconds, but the officials ruled it was a clean block.
While the Lakers couldn’t believe it, the no-call ended up working out for them in the end. Luke Kennard got a wide-open three from their out-of-bounds play after the timeout, and he drilled the game-winner with 0.6 seconds remaining.
Winning the game probably made it a bit easier for Redick to bite his tongue a bit at the end there. The 41-year-old later commended his players for not allowing external factors to put them off their game.
“We did a good job of just playing through stuff,” Redick stated. “Whether it was some cold shooting, some hot shooting from them for a little stretch there, getting down, playing on the road again, the external circumstances of whatever tonight was, and not allowing that to get us off our game, really, truly.
“We just kept playing,” Redick continued. “We talked about it at halftime. We talked about it in huddles. One of the weirdest games I’ve been a part of in that regard.”
The officials also handed out technical fouls to Luka Doncic and Goga Bitadze in the third quarter here. Doncic is set to be suspended for a game as a result, as that was his 16th technical of the season.
“We’ll obviously try to get that rescinded,” Redick said. “I’m not sure what happened. I do know that there were certain things said in a language that the referees couldn’t understand in references to Luka’s mom…. Austin [Reaves] gets targeted three times by [Wendell] Carter. They didn’t have a real good control of that basketball game.”
Doncic later revealed that Bitadze had disrespected his family with an NSFW message. He is hoping the technical gets rescinded, and the Lakers have indeed appealed it.
Doncic will miss Monday’s game against the 51-19 Detroit Pistons if the NBA doesn’t rescind that technical. He’ll be a big miss against the East’s No. 1 seed, but the Lakers would fancy themselves to beat anybody at this point, regardless of the circumstances. This incredible nine-game win streak has seen them improve to 46-25 on the season and strengthen their grip on the third seed in the West.
