Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick criticized his players’ lackluster performance after a 111-108 loss against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday. The team was missing three starters, including veteran LeBron James, but Redick said being short-handed is not an excuse for this mundane show.
Redick said the players who were available didn’t play up to the team’s standards and it was disappointing for him that it was a very-low level communication game.
“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.”
Redick let out his frustrations that the players were not even successful in passing the ball to each other.
“I think it was just an overall mentality just to take shortcuts tonight,” Redick said. “Want to be a good team? You want to win in the NBA? You got to do the hard stuff. We couldn’t even pass to each other. We couldn’t enter our offense, running ball screens literally at half court. Yeah, that’s going to end up in a turnover. I don’t know what we’re doing.”
James missed the game due to a left groin injury whereas center Jaxson Hayes (knee), starting forward Rui Hachimura (knee) and key reserve Dorian Finney-Smith (ankle) were other notable absentees.
Luka Doncic took the onus of the loss on his shoulders.
“When JJ said [that] about communication today, that was important,” Doncic said. “That’s my fault and we should have done better at that.”
The Slovenian scored 22 points, 12 assists and 12 rebounds, but he shot 8-for-26 (3-for-10 from 3) with five turnovers.
Austin Reaves, on the other hand, had 17 points, 10 assists, and 8 rebounds but shot 3-for-14.
“I just thought I played incredibly bad,” Reaves said. “That’s, really, you know, about as much as I can say about that. 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 will next take on the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday.
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