From a flicker of hope to a full-blown meltdown. The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t just lose to the Chicago Bulls on March 22—they got absolutely embarrassed. A 146-115 beatdown that started off looking like a solid matchup turned into a full-blown nightmare. Luka Doncic came out firing, dropping 29 of his 34 points in the first half, but once he cooled off? The Lakers completely collapsed. The Bulls ran circles around them in the second half, outscoring LA 81-53. Yeah, you read that right. Guess what Redick has to say?
Head coach JJ Redick didn’t sugarcoat anything when asked what went wrong. The answer? Straight-up exhaustion. The Lakers have been grinding through one of the toughest stretches of the season, and it finally caught up to them. But while Redick is focused on somehow keeping his squad alive for the playoffs, the Lakers’ front office is getting ready to clean house—and it’s all connected.
If you thought Redick was going to dance around the issue, you don’t know JJ. He called it exactly how it is: this team is gassed. “We played seven games in ten nights, six in the last eight,” Redick said, not mincing words. “Honestly, I thought when we came out, we looked flat, we felt flat, we moved flat. They just moved better than us all night.”
That’s a huge problem. The Lakers were only down three at halftime, but Redick knew that was misleading. “Luka made some insane shots, and we could have easily been down 15 to 20,” he admitted. And then? The floodgates opened. LA had nothing left to give after the Bulls ran them straight out of the gym, scoring 81 second-half points.
