Head Coach JJ Redick Discussion: Spazzing Out

why do you not wnat to call TO's - needed desperately to get marcus back in the game in 3rd.

At least he played Theiro a little - sigh.

 

yeah lakers just got killed w/o Marcus

 

It's because Luke and Jake are giving us sweet all at the moment. Hayes can't do much by himself, OKC is taking away alot of his finishing at the rim.

I do think we need to do a better job of playing Ayton with those 4, we need to get him into some iso's at the elbow. It at least slows the game down a little bit.

 

Good job not getting ejected. With the s*** they were/ weren't calling, not sure how he managed it. Although this game might have shaved some days off his life.

Thought he had another well coached game. They came up with a solid game plan. managed to get Austin more space out there, we continued to do well against the Fraud, gave Thiero a couple shifts, and audibled the 4th Q early rotation back to the starters.

Overall, he and Marcus have instilled a hell of a culture and a do not give up attitude with this group. That's something countless Laker teams in recent years have not had. It's such a breath of fresh air.

 

lol, that thunder fan lady in the background like "well...he has a point..."

 

i'm glad he defended the emotional reactions to officiating. there's no way to just not get mad about that stuff. the only people who never get mad at the officials are the ones who never have reason to get mad at them.

i like that he pointed out jaylin williams a couple times, too, as imo, the league doesn't need these kinds of players. they don't make for a better product. like, yeah, if you're 260lbs and can just manhandle people with impunity on both ends, it's going to help your team win. but that's not basketball. and certainly not what fans pay to see. nobody wants to watch jaylin williams do anything, man.

i also agree that even with better refs i don't think we're winning these games. but they're definitely closer, and okc would definitely feel more pressure. maybe guys like mccain aren't so loose in such situations?

 

JJ is greatly improved as a coach from last years playoffs. Reminds me of the growth Erik Spolestra had from year 1 to year 2.

 

Just wait until he gets more than one defensive building blocks this summer.

 

There’s this idea being bandied about that we’re a terrible defensive team. We’ve actually improved every month and we were a top 5 defensive team in March. These playoffs we’ve been top tier defensively.

I think the concepts employed by the coaching staff both last season and this season have been phenomenal. They’ve built defensive game plans with our players strengths in mind while being able to adjust it to our opponents. Really great stuff.

Also I think we need to adjust our opinions on our players:

- Smart has been at or close to his DPOY levels
- Ayton in the playoffs has stepped up to be a positive defensively
- Lebron has played really great defensively and is causing lots of turnovers
- Rui has shown a new gear
- Reaves has improved a lot defensively, he is using his body to shield players and funnel them to where he wants, no one is attacking him in isolation anymore because of his IQ he beats you to the spot and uses his body to bump you off balance

We’re not a bad defensive team and if we had Luka, we’d be even better. That guys underrated with his IQ on that end of the floor.

 

Jezus put the flame suit on for that kind of crazy talk!

 

I don’t think it should be crazy talk. Everyone is saying we were bad in the regular season. For 3/4 of the season we were on pace for 60 wins.

Last year we had Lebron, Luka, Reaves, Rui, DFS as our playoff capable players.

This year we have Lebron, Luka, Reaves, Smart, Rui, Ayton, Kennard and Hayes (sort of)

If we can keep the core and add another 2 pieces, we’re right there, both sides of the ball.

 

we were bad on defense. sort of unequivocally, until the hot run in march. we were 20th in defensive rating for the season.

we've been good in the playoffs. part of that is we played houston minus durant and we're playing okc minus williams. i need to see us start the season with the same commitment level to believe in it.

still think we need to add players who defend.