Redick praises LeBron and criticizes others' lack of effort in the Lakers' loss

MEMPHIS – After the Memphis Grizzlies' 131-114 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, Desmond Bane interviewed Scotty Pippen Jr. on the court to praise him for stealing the ball from LeBron James when he The game ended at one point after Ja Morant left with a right hamstring injury.

“See how he snatched the ball from that old man over there?” Bane said as he grabbed Pippen by the shoulders.

Over in the losers' locker room, Lakers coach JJ Redick used this “old man” as an example of how the rest of the roster should play.

“I think LeBron was fantastic tonight,” Redick said after James scored a season-high 39 points on 15-for-24 shooting with LA missing two starters in Anthony Davis (left heel bruise) and Rui Hachimura (illness). . “The biggest thing that stood out. … He played hard. He is almost 40 years old and played the hardest on our team. That says a lot about him.”

And it says a lot about the rest of the LA team, which ended its five-game road trip with another loss, going 1-4 overall and 4-4 on the season.

During Redick's postgame remarks, the first-year coach was asked how he would deal with his team's perceived lack of effort.

“I just did that,” Redick said, placing the microphone on the table in front of him to end the press conference.

As Redick left the room, he called out to reporters, “First thing I told them.”

Redick began to send the message through the way he distributed playing time.

He doled out just six minutes to D'Angelo Russell in the second half — and a season-low 22 minutes total — as he mixed up his rotation to try to find a spark.

“Just the level of competition, the attention to detail, some of the things we've been talking to him about for a couple of weeks,” Redick said when asked why he limited Russell's role in Memphis. “And sometimes he was really good at it. And sometimes it's easy to fall back into certain habits that we wanted to take.

Russell finished the game with 12 points on 4-for-12 shooting (2-for-9 from 3), but he wasn't the only LA player who struggled against the Grizzlies. Dalton Knecht, starting in place of Hachimura for the first time in his career, shot 1-for-7 with all of his shots coming from beyond the 3-point arc. Austin Reaves scored 19 points but was just 2 of 9 from 3. Gabe Vincent, who benefited from Russell's minutes, was 2 of 8 overall (1 of 6 from 3).

James, who on Wednesday became just the sixth player in league history to reach 1,500 career games, was asked about Redick's statement about the accomplishment.

“At the end of the day, especially when you're losing bodies, you have to compete,” said James, who partnered defensively with Jaren Jackson Jr., the 6-foot-10 power forward from Memphis, for most of the evening. “You have to compete even harder. You have to go out there and give it everything you can on both ends. I think there were times when we did that, but most of the time I don't think we could sustain the energy and effort.”

It was the second loss of the trip as LA allowed more than 130 points to its opponents while the Lakers fell to 28th in the NBA in defensive efficiency, scoring 118.8 points per 100 possessions.

“We had to compete and defend. We gave up 50% shooting and they shot the 3-ball well. Well,” James said. “So there wasn't too much offense, even though we didn't shoot the ball well. We have to do a better job of that, but the defense is where we have to hang our hats too.”