The Los Angeles Lakers lost their first game in weeks after a subpar performance against the Phoenix Suns. While Luka Doncic led the team with 38 points, despite nine turnovers, Austin Reaves, and specifically LeBron James, struggled on the offensive side of the floor.
Though James managed to continue his historic 1,298 consecutive games scoring double-digit points, that didn’t make him immune from criticism from his head coach, JJ Redick, who turned heads with the message he sent to James while the Lakers were down by 21 points late in the third quarter.
James was talking with the Phoenix Suns bench, specifically to his former teammate, Jordan Goodwin, and despite ‘Bron!‘ calls from his head coach, the 21-time All-Star continued to talk to his opponents well after Redick called a timeout.
Though Redick didn’t address this moment in his postgame press conference with the media, he made sure to say that he wasn’t happy with how his team performed as a whole. It was the first time this year neither James or Reaves hit the 20-point mark, while the Lakers were heavily outdueled in the turnover and fastbreak points battle for their first loss since November 12th.
JJ Redick On The Lakers’ Loss
James keeping his double-digit scoring streak alive was one of the lasting talking points of the night, but Redick made it clear that he has changes to make to ensure a loss to a team like the shorthanded Suns doesn’t happen again.
“If you don’t play hard against that team, you’re going to get exposed,” Redick said. “We talked about matching their physicality. Didn’t do that to any extent, at any point in the game.”
The Lakers lost the turnover battle 21-11 to Phoenix, and gave up 28 total fast-break points compared to their lowly 2. Los Angeles did grab more total rebounds, but after being outscored by 14 in the second quarter, it never looked like they had the game within reach.
“In the moments when we had a chance to be rewarded, we didn’t do what we were supposed to do, and we got punished. That was throughout the game, not a single moment,” Redick said before then being asked as to how he’ll fix the issues present in the loss to the Suns. “You got to look at everything, everything. Rotations, schemes, all that stuff.”
James has been slow in his return from sciatica, with only one game scoring more than 20 points, but his timeout situation with the Phoenix bench and Redick was one of the memorable moments from the night. The Lakers as a whole looked off against the mainly Devin Booker-less Suns, as the loss snapped a seven-game win streak.
Redick On Jarred Vanderbilt
While Redick was visibly frustrated with his roster during and after the game, there has been another question about Jarred Vanderbilt that fans are still wondering about. The forward has yet to see any on-court action in the past six games, and was the only player on Los Angeles’ roster not to play in the loss to the Suns.
According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, before the contest, Redick said the 26-year-old has ‘been good‘ and knew a minutes restriction would come into effect once James returned.
“He’s been good. He’s been a pro, he’s been great in the most recent stay-ready that we had this week,” Redick said. “I communicated to him before LeBron came back that there were certain things that he needed to be able to do consistently to play before LeBron came back, after LeBron came back, and that there was potentially gonna be a numbers crunch because we probably were gonna play a nine-man rotation, and that was just the reality.”
However, Vanderbilt hasn’t played at all since James came back, and despite playing in the team’s first 14 games, starting in two of them, he is now out of the rotation.
Writing for LakeShowLife, Svyatoslav Rovenchuk urged Redick and the Lakers to feature Vanderbilt in the lineup more. Though he isn’t the most impactful player on offense, he would be a solid addition on the defensive end of the floor, as he’s shown throughout his career.
“Getting Vanderbilt on the court could have been the answer for replacing the energy and tenacity that is brought by [Marcus] Smart,” he wrote. “However, it also sounded like there is work to be done before Redick can trust Vanderbilt completely on the court again.”
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