-
Dave McMenamin, ESPN writer
MEMPHIS – After the Grizzlies’ 131-114 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, Memphis’ Desmond Bane interrupted teammate Scotty Pippen Jr.’s on-court interview to praise him for stealing the ball from LeBron James, as Pippen closed out the game. game at the point after Ja Morant exited with a right hamstring injury.
“See the way he snatched that ball from that old man over there?” Bane said as he grabbed Pippen by the shoulders.
In the losing locker room, Lakers coach JJ Redick used that “old guy” as an example of how the rest of the Los Angeles roster should play.
“I thought LeBron was fantastic tonight,” Redick said after James scored a season-high 39 points on 15-of-24 shooting, with the Lakers missing two starters: Anthony Davis (left heel bruise) and Rui Hachimura (disease). “The biggest thing that stood out…He played hard. He was almost 40 years old and he played the hardest on our team. It says a lot about him.”
And it said a lot about the rest of this Los Angeles team that ended its five-game road trip with another loss to finish 1-4 overall and fall to 4-4 on the season.
During Redick’s postgame comments, the first-year coach was asked how he would address the perceived lack of effort with his team.
“I just did it,” Redick said, dropping the microphone on the table in front of him to end the news conference.
As Redick left the room, he yelled at reporters: “First thing I told you.”
Redick began to get the message across with the way he distributed playing time.
He gave just six second-half minutes to D’Angelo Russell (and a season-low 22 minutes total) as the coach shuffled his rotation to try to find a spark.
“Just level of competency, attention to detail, some of the things we’ve talked to him about for a couple of weeks,” Redick said when asked why he limited Russell’s role in Memphis. “And sometimes, he’s been really good with those things. And other times, he just falls back into certain habits. But it wasn’t like a punishment. We just felt like we had a chance to win this game, that’s what it was.” the path we wanted to take.”
Russell finished with 12 points on 4-of-12 shooting (2-of-9 from 3), but he wasn’t the only Los Angeles player who struggled against the Grizzlies. Dalton Knecht, making his first career start in place of Hachimura, shot 1 of 7, with all of his shots coming from beyond the 3-point arc. Austin Reaves scored 19, but was just 2 of 9 on 3-pointers. Gabe Vincent, who was the beneficiary of Russell’s reduced minutes, was 2-for-8 overall and 1-for-6 on 3-pointers.
James, who became just the sixth player in league history to reach 1,500 career games on Wednesday, was asked about Redick’s statement about the effort.
“At the end of the day, especially when you lose bodies, you have to compete,” said James, who was paired defensively with 6-foot-10 power forward Jaren Jackson Jr. for much of the night. “You have to compete even harder. You have to be out there giving everything you have and on both ends. I think there were times where we did that, but most of the time, I don’t think we kept the energy up.” and effort.”
It was the second loss on the trip in which Los Angeles allowed more than 130 points, as the Lakers fell to 28th in defensive efficiency in the NBA, allowing 118.8 points per 100 possessions.
“We have to compete and we have to defend,” James said. “We missed 50% of our shots and they shot the 3-pointer well. They got in the paint. They got offensive rebounds. They got second-chance points. And they had some transition points, too.
“So it wasn’t a big part of the offense, even though we didn’t shoot the ball well. We’ve got to do a better job at that. But the defense, we’ve got to hang our hat on that, too.”
