The Los Angeles Lakers are 4-4 for the season, which is unacceptable in the eyes of many Lakers fans and players alike. The teams fell to the Detroit Pistons on Monday, November 4, in Detroit, and they also lost to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday, November 6, so it’s been a frustrating week for Los Angeles.
Following the Grizzlies loss, Lakers head coach JJ Redick had a lot to say about the loss and star player LeBron James.
Los Angeles Lakers’ JJ Redick Talks Grizzlies Loss
The Lakers certainly can’t put the blame for the Grizzlies loss on James. He scored 39 points for the night, made six threes and played with passion. The team looked motivated on the court, too, but they just weren’t getting buckets. The final score was 131 to 114, so it wasn’t even really close.
In a postgame press conference, Redick told the world that he felt James put on an incredible performance.
“I think LeBron was fantastic tonight,” he said. “Biggest thing that stood out. I had no idea he’d hit 39 [points] until [after]. I’m not looking at the box scores during the game. But he played hard. Almost 40 years old and played the hardest on our team. It says a lot about him.”
In general, though, when it came to the team’s performance, “none of us are [satisfied with the effort],” Redick said.
During the third quarter, Redick benched point guard D’Angelo Russell. He talked about that decision postgame.
“Just level of compete, attention to detail, some of the things we’ve talked with him about for a couple of weeks,” Redick said. “And at times he’s been really good with that stuff. And other times, it’s just reverting back to certain habits. But it wasn’t like a punishment. It just felt for us to have a chance to win this game, that was the route we wanted to take.”
LeBron James: ‘You Got to Compete Harder’
Also speaking postgame, James talked about what he said to the team following the loss. He talked about the Lakers needing to sustain “energy and effort” going forward.
“At the end of the day, especially when you lose bodies, you got to compete. You got to compete even harder,” James said. “You got to be out there giving it everything that you got and on both ends. I think there were times that we did that, but the majority of the time, I don’t think we sustained energy and effort.”
As for losing bodies, James was referring to the fact the team was short-handed on Wednesday. Anthony Davis was out with a heel contusion, which he got Monday in Detroit, and Rui Hachimura was out due to an illness.
James added, “We got to compete, and we got to defend. We gave up 50% shooting, and they shot the 3 ball well. They got into the paint. They got offensive rebounds. They got second-chance points. And they had some transition points, as well. So, it wasn’t too much of the offense, even though we didn’t shoot the ball well. We got to do a better job of that. But defense, we got to hang our hat on that too.”
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