After losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers 110-134 today, the Los Angeles Lakers’ 3-0 start to the season has swiftly turned into a 3-2 one. Any team doesn’t want to lose back-to-back games, but JJ Redick’s Lakers, who appear to have lost some of their early-season momentum, are particularly affected.
During the press conference following the game, head coach JJ Redick discussed the defeat and bemoaned the errors that caused it. Redick skillfully explained how the Cavaliers’ better creation and the Lakers’ worst season performance made their defeat mathematically inevitable.
Redick said, “When you play a good basketball team, you can’t afford a lot of mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes, simple stuff sometimes, low-man, rotations, not executing our switches early. They did a lot of things to force us into those mistakes but when you play a good basketball team, you can’t make that many mistakes.”
He further stated, “We got down early and couldn’t recover… They had 17 more scoring opportunities, they generated 13 more threes, they beat us +33 in the three-point battle, we had our lowest crash rate of the season, we had our highest limbo rate of the season, it’s not a winnable game if you do those things and turn the ball over 20+ times. You’re not gonna win those games, that’s just math.”
JJ Redick Defends The Performance Of His Players Despite Their Blowout Loss
JJ Redick defended his players when questioned about their lackluster performance that evening, even though he had criticized the team’s effort based on the statistical numbers.
Redick said, “I don’t know if it was that. Garland and Mitchell off the dribble gave us a lot of problems, so you certainly can ask and want to have more pride on that end of basketball. I don’t think the focus and attention to detail of what we were trying to do was great tonight. It didn’t feel like it was an effort or competitiveness thing, it was kind of a regress.”
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Evan Mobley (25 Pts, 5 Reb), Donovan Mitchell (24 Pts, 7 Ast), and Jarrett Allen (20 Pts, 17 Reb) were too much for the Lakers to stop offensively as the Cavaliers won handily to raise their season record to 5-0. Darius Garland also had a fantastic evening with ten assists in the victory.
LeBron James led the Lakers with 26 points, six rebounds, and three assists, while Anthony Davis finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds. High-performing players like Austin Reaves (7 points) and Rui Hachimura (8 points) showed a noticeable decline for the Lakers tonight. Dalton Knecht scored 18 points in a fantastic bench performance. Three games are left before JJ Redick and the Lakers end their road trip.
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