“They were shocking him versus the quick blitz in some of his picking roles” : Lakers coach JJ Reddick defends LeBron James after frustrating loss to Denver Nuggets
Once again, Nikola Jovic and the Nuggets have comfortably overpowered the Lakers 127-102, as the game in itself seemed finished by the third quarter where the California based team managed only 15 points. Jokic as usual, shined with a whopping 34 points, 8 assists and 13 rebounds while no player from the Lakers, not even the King were able to get to 20 points.
In their last 14 meetings, the Serbian’s squad has won 13 of them and it feels like the Lakers have no answer whatsoever to their offence. But this time, turnovers were the biggest issue the Lakers faced, as this concern has been slowly creeping up to them for a while now.
When asked about this, head coach JJ Reddick did not mind being crystal clear.
“Have you seen any causation as to what is occurring? Either within his role in the offense or the other players’ roles in the offense? Is that what’s leading to his turnovers growing over the last week or so?” Reddick said.
The Lakers actually had a 10-point lead by the end of the second quarter which made this loss even more disappointing for their fans as they ran riot on social media, and this time, even LeBron James was not spared of criticism.
But the Lakers coach did not want to hear any of this discourse, and quickly backed up his star player.
“They were shocking him versus the quick blitz in some of his picking roles.” Reddick defended LeBron James.
“I think some of that with tonight, sometimes high usage players can kind of go through stretches where they do have high turnover games, and you have to live with that.” the Lakers coach added.
“It’s not just players not executing the game plan, it’s all of us” : JJ Reddick wants the whole Lakers to take credit for this loss
The American coach’s very candid post-match press continued with him outing basically the whole of Lakers, as this was a second straight loss and he was obviously not delighted with the subpar performance. LeBron James was the only exception as he managed 18 points with 7 assists and 6 rebounds, a ‘bad’ performance considering his standards, but even Anthony Davis could not go past 14 points, as he got completely outmatched by Jokic.
“We didn’t execute it,”
“Me and my staff will take some ownership of that as well. It’s not just players not executing the game plan, it’s all of us. We’re all on the same team, we all want the same outcome. We all want to be a good defensive team, so we’ve got to figure out that together.”
Nonetheless, the LA Lakers now need to bounce back in some fashion, as they play the Phoenix Suns next in the group stage of the NBA Cup. Their defence needs to be sharp as the likes of Kevin Durant and Devin Booker possess the threat of scoring out of nowhere.
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