Coach J.J. Redick made two bold strategic moves that nearly led the Lakers to a Game 4 victory in Minnesota, writes Jovan Buha of The Athletic. Redick decided to replace center Jaxson Hayes with Dorian Finney-Smith for the start of the third quarter, and he used the same five players for the entire second half. Buha notes that Gabe Vincent nearly checked in at one point, but Redick changed his mind and stayed with the same unit for the full 24 minutes.
“I think once you’ve kind of made that decision, and (the players) all are in, you just gotta trust them,” Redick said.
The move seemed inevitable with Hayes, who has been limited to seven points and eight rebounds in the series and didn’t reach double digits in minutes in any of the first four games. Finney-Smith enables L.A. to spread the floor on offense and switch more easily on defense.
The group started the second half on an 11-0 run and won the third quarter by a 36-23 margin, giving the Lakers their highest-scoring quarter of the series. They led by seven points with 5:06 remaining and seemed to be in a good position to tie the series, but couldn’t close out the game. A series of late mistakes proved costly, but players refused to blame the loss on their iron man performance in the second half.
“I don’t think fatigue had anything to do with that,” LeBron James said. “Just missing some point-blank shots, you know? We were getting into what we wanted to get into. We just weren’t able to convert.”
There’s more on the Lakers:
- Sunday’s game displayed how little trust Redick has in his bench, Buha adds. Along with Hayes, his other rotation members, Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt and Jordan Goodwin, tend to be one-way players. Buha believes Redick might use a center-less approach for the rest of the series, even though the Wolves have a lot of size on their front line.
- After battling through a stomach virus in Game 3, Luka Doncic seemed to be back to normal on Sunday, according to Khobi Price of The Orange County Register. Doncic finished with 38 points while logging a series-high 46 minutes. “This is the playoffs – fatigue shouldn’t play any role in this,” Doncic said. “I played a lot of minutes, but that shouldn’t play a role. I think they just executed better on the offensive end during the last minutes.”
- James also played 46 minutes and appears to be fully recovered from a left hip flexor strain he suffered two weeks ago, Buha states in a separate story. “He’s moving better,” Redick said after Game 3. “He seems like he’s getting healthier by the day. It’s typically a one-to-two-week injury. Believe it’s been two weeks tonight, if I’m mistaken, from the Houston game. Clearly he’s moving better.”
Lakers bamboozled the basketball world with luka trade
And now 1st rd humiliating exit lol
Bye bye lebron
Bye bye la
can’t win with just 5 players.
JJ playing LeBron 44 minutes and Luka is why they lost. Both were dead tired at the end of the game. If you don’t trust your bench then you failed as a coach.
La mediocridad de los Lakers se nota a estas alturas, ni a quien culpar
LeBron can’t get out of the first round with Davis or Luka.
GOAT lmao.
A true GOAT would never go 4-6 in Finals, if he was as good as they said he was, he would go 10-0 or 9-1.
I don’t even like LeBron but he’s 40 years old you chode.
He’s definitely the 40 year old GOAT. Not even close.
Where do these people come from?
So he can put up triple doubles at 40 but can’t win?
They come (and stay) from their parents house
Imagine if Thibs played his starters the whole second half. JJ couldn’t lose this game. He went for it. His failure is not securing a Center for playoffs. Moses was out there. Small ball is a myth.
No real knowledgeable fan believes in small ball. Its a tool. Its a system you can use or not use. Its not the end all. You can’t teach size. Amazing to me teams still don’t get this.
Hero Ball strikes again ….. I know AD they might have won this. Not a chip. But at least go 7 ……
OneWay Wonder got a one way trip home first rd Exit.
Small ball has not worked for the last 5 years. Teams have gone after centers in the last few drafts and the game has changed back. Small ball only works against slow teams but in the playoffs you need a big center. Big mistake on lakers is voiding the trade for a center. Made no sense because they didn’t give up that much for a center.
Small ball has been around since Celtics first chip bro After Warriors won using it. Everyone went nuts with it. Its a system another offense in the playbook. Even Kerr is finally figuring that out again. All I’m saying is. Today you have to go big or small. 15 players on a roster. JJ is not a servant. Playing ball is just matchups. You need depth and size. Lakers are proving that. No one or three players wins a chip. It takes a franchise to do it. JJ has no bigs. No bigs, thats not all on him.
You are kinda right. Small Ball did start with the Celtics. But, it took the 25 years of playing small ball for the Warriors to win a championship.
Also, why do people keep insisting that Kerr doesn’t want to play a big man? He definitely wants the next Jokic or Zubac.
They have drafted 3 players 6’11″+ in Kerr’s time.
Suns . RunTMC, Bullits with Unseld. Knicks beat Lakers with small ball when Reed went down. Nobody remembers that. All about him limping on in gm 7. Well if Knicks don’t win gm6 there is no gm 7. Knicks had all their forwards take turns on Wilt. And shot lights out. Warriors just made it fashionable again. Cause they had great shooters. Thats the key to small ball.
During the regular season, Redick needs to integrate the bench players effectively into the team’s overall strategy
Basically Redick is saying that Lakers don’t have depth.
Correct he refused to use his bench when he should have experimented with them to find out if they can play.
Sound like Thibs ….
Thibs should thank Brunson everyday because without Brunson the knicks lose He is as valuable as what Curry is to the warriors.
“Nearly led to a W”
“Nearly”
That’s never going to be enough.
46 mins and 15-18 from FT with only 27 total points = Lebron, 2025.
Now everyone go look up Kareem’s age 40 and 41 seasons and what he did in the playoffs.
Lebron does not clear Kareem.
Enough people pointed out the obvious at the time – the Lakers, post-Luka deal, have no frontcourt. It was always going to be a problem, but some people got all starry-eyed over Luka and refused to see it. Even with AD, they needed an extra big – sending him away was the nail in the coffin.
Told you so.
Terrible decision not to play at least 7 players. Just makes your bench worse for the next series of games. MN by contrast trusts a full 8 players. And what if a starter gets injured?
What you get from a no-experience coach.