These early road trips for the Lakers under head coach JJ Redick have been rough.
After the team was once again beaten in blowout fashion, this time against the Thunder, Redick said it was time to right the ship.
“I think you have to look big picture then you have to look where your team is at right now,” Redick said postgame. “I don’t think it’s been a great road trip for us in terms of how we’ve played. Second half against Charlotte, I liked everything that I saw. But the Atlanta game and tonight I don’t think are reflective of who the group is going to be but it clearly is who the group is right now and so we’ve got to course correct.”
You can’t teach effort, but Redick is responsible for it. It doesn’t matter if the Lakers are playing defending champs like the Thunder or shorthanded teams like the Hawks, the appropriate level of compete has been absent.
The result has been getting obliterated in these games, and it will happen again against the Pelicans and Bucks unless the Lakers get it together.
While the Lakers have gotten off to a bad start during this road trip, there’s still time to fix things and even come out of this slate of games with more wins than losses.
They just need to execute and take care of business against a 2-7 New Orleans team, then head to Milwaukee and slow down Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.
Let’s see if they can get it done and make this road trip a relative success, or if it’ll be a mess just like last year.