Lakers head coach JJ Redick addressed the final sequence after Orlando’s 110-109 victory over Los Angeles, saying, “Yeah, I mean I haven’t had a chance to really get into it with Luka. We obviously ran a play for get a look. You know, I felt like he had a decent shot. You know, I don’t know if he thought Isaac was going to overhelp LeBron there.”
On the last 36 seconds, Redick explained, “We went for a two for one. We executed it. We get a wide open three from there’s a great shot for us. One of our best shots that we can get. Doesn’t make it, but we, you know, get the ball out of bounds on the deflection. We execute our inbounds. AR set a great screen. LeBron created a lot of thrust on that with some red confusion. We scored and then we get a stop. Um and just not able to secure the the rebound.”
He reflected on the team’s challenges against Orlando’s size and strength: “You go into this game with their size and their strength, you know, it’s going to be a rock fight and, um, we lose the scoring opportunity by eight in a one-point game. We had more turnovers than them. They got more offensive rebounds than us.”
Redick also analyzed Orlando’s second-half surge: “When Orlando started to get back into it quickly, you know, you’d have to go back and go sequence by sequence. I thought they were able to get to the basket consistently in the second half, really put pressure on our rim. And then Banchero made a lot of jumpers.”
Regarding the team’s energy compared to Sunday, he said, “Yeah, I mean every event is its own event and I thought we played well enough to win tonight. Certainly had the edge and played hard enough to win and we played together. We did our best to play the right way and share the basketball.”
On balancing structured and free-flowing offense, Redick added, “Yeah. I think you got to give your guys some leeway to play early offense versus just playing half court. And we got to find that balance. This is a team, you know, they didn’t start one through five, but they played one through five the entire game last year. I thought, you know, we were prepared for them to go to red and switch everything. And we had some good stuff. I thought that Luke made a difference, you know, when he was in the game with just his movement against their switching.”
On the Lakers’ 4-4 homestand, Redick summarized, “Yeah, we’re a work in progress.”
