NEW YORK — Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick laid out what he felt was the blueprint for his team’s potential success without LeBron James.
After James injured his groin and did not return to Los Angeles’ 111-101 loss to the Boston Celtics on Saturday, Redick said that his team would have to “play hard and play defense” without its superstar to remain competitive.
But 48 hours later, the Lakers didn’t do the former and struggled with the latter in their 111-108 loss to the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center on Monday.
The Lakers were undermanned without their entire starting frontcourt — James, Rui Hachimura (left patellar tendinopathy) and Jaxson Hayes (right knee contusion) — and key reserve Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle soreness). The absences compromised the Lakers’ ability to rebound, protect the rim and make the Nets pay for an aggressive defensive strategy against Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves.
But Redick didn’t care for those reasons or excuses. After the game, he sounded off on his team’s effort, focus and execution.
“We just wanted to take shortcuts,” Redick said. “Too many. … Want to be a good team? You want to win in the NBA? You gotta do the hard stuff. … I don’t know what we’re doing.”
Brooklyn entered the game on a seven-game losing streak. The Lakers entered having won 20 of 25 and were still upset after their Boston loss. Even without half their rotation, the Lakers had weathered being shorthanded during various parts of January and February as they forged a resilient identity they’ve become proud of.
But that wasn’t reflected in their approach, Redick said. He specifically pointed to their poor communication as the reason they underperformed on both sides of the ball.
“I think it was a very low-level communication game for our team,” Redick said. “I don’t think being short-handed is an excuse for how we played basketball tonight.”
Despite logging a triple-double (22 points, 12 assists and 12 rebounds), Dončić took accountability for his poor shooting (8-of-26), turnovers (five) and lack of communication and organization offensively.
That was important,” Dončić said of the team’s communication. “That’s my fault, and we should have done better at that.”
Dončić was upset with how the game was called all evening. He had multiple drives in which he ended up on the ground, throwing his hands up in disbelief and complaining to the officials. It partly affected both his transition defense and concentration during the game. He eventually picked up a technical foul late in the third quarter in a culmination of all of his earlier gripes.
The Lakers attempted only two free throws in the first half compared to the Nets’ 15. The second half was much more balanced — 17 attempts for Los Angeles and 15 for Brooklyn — but the Lakers felt the discrepancy was unjust.
“I mean, at the end of the day, it was a lot,” Dončić said. “It wasn’t fair. But we still got to play the game. I got to keep playing the game. But it was a lot.
Reaves also took accountability for his third subpar game by his lofty standards. He nearly had a triple-double — 17 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds — but shot 3-of-14 and had three turnovers in his third game since returning from his calf strain.
“I just thought I played incredibly bad,” Reaves said. “It’s frustrating not helping your team win. When Bron’s out, I got to be better and I wasn’t. That’s one of the reasons we lost.”
The Lakers allowed just 16 points in the first quarter and led by as many as 15 points early in the second quarter. But the defense declined from that point on, allowing 95 points over the 34:50 — and at least 30 points in each of the final three quarters. They made far too many mistakes, failing to load up the paint to gang rebound, allowing certain shooters to get wide-open 3s, and generally botching their switches and assignments.
On the other side of the floor, the Nets aggressively blitzed and doubled and trapped Dončić and Reaves, which threw the Lakers’ offense out of sorts and forced the rest of the group to make shots, read closeouts and try to keep the ball moving. With half of their rotation out, the results were mixed at best.
The Lakers turned the ball over 15 times, leading to 19 Nets points. Redick said the group has to do a better job of making simple reads to the open man and then exploiting four-on-three advantages once the ball is past the initial two defenders.
But Los Angeles hung around, in part, because of the contributions from role players: Gabe Vincent (24 points, his most as a Laker, on 8-of-12 shooting and 6-of-9 from 3), Dalton Knecht (19 points on 8-of-18 shooting) and two-way guard Jordan Goodwin (17 points, a career-high five 3s and eight rebounds).
“I think I should have helped more,” Dončić said. “But they all played great. We got to have the same mentality moving forward. Injuries are going to happen, and it’s got to be a next-man-up mentality.”
This loss could haunt the Lakers. With how close the Western Conference standings are, it could be the difference in a seed or even home-court advantage in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs. The Lakers were inevitably going to suffer some slippage with James out — to say nothing of the other three frontcourt rotation players — but the Nets game was projected to be their easiest game over the next two weeks.
Back-to-back Lakers losses, combined with the Memphis Grizzlies’ three-game winning streak, have the two teams tied for the No. 3 seed. The Lakers are now two wins behind the Denver Nuggets, whom they play twice over the next nine days. The Lakers travel to Milwaukee to tip off a six-games-in-eight-days stretch, featuring three consecutive back-to-backs.
“Everybody’s got to buy in to helping the team be successful,” Reaves said.
