標籤: Redicks

The resentment toward Bronny James appears to be subsiding in his second year with the Los Angeles Lakers. But that doesn’t mean he won’t continue to prove himself.

Many felt that James did not deserve to be in the NBA when the Lakers drafted him in the second round in 2024, saying that he was given the position due to being the son of LeBron James.

The criticism was wrong. The noise became louder. But little James put his head down and got to work. He has shown improvement in his second year, especially in his confidence, and he has not gone unnoticed by the Lakers.

Spectrum Sportsnet’s Mike Trudell reports that Los Angeles coach JJ Redick praised the 21-year-old guard after Wednesday’s win over the Indiana Pacers.

Redick said, “He’s gotten a lot better. Our staff has a lot of confidence in him. It felt like this was a game where we really needed him.”

Trudell said Redick cited James’ “defense, athleticism and increased confidence in his shot.”

The Lakers improved to 47–26 by defeating the Pacers 137–130 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. They are 9-1 in their last 10 games.

The young James contributed four points, including a thunderous dunk, one rebound, one assist, two steals and a block in 13 minutes off the bench.

Although he has yet to earn consistent playing time, the former McDonald’s All-American has shown that he can perform, especially on the defensive end, when given adequate opportunities.

It will be difficult for him to step away from his great father’s shadow, but as long as the Lakers continue to be successful, he will happily play his part and leave the haters crying.

The NBA MVP conversation has primarily revolved around last season’s winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, three-time recipient Nikola Jokic and Defensive Player of the Year favorite Victor Wembanyama, but Luka Doncic is forcing voters to accept his candidacy. The five-time All-NBA First-Team selection has been amazing as the Los Angeles Lakers continue their eight-game winning streak. Perhaps his latest masterpiece will make people reevaluate their awards chances.

A day after scoring 40 points against the Houston Rockets, Doncic paced the Miami Heat with 60 points on 18-of-30 shooting in a 134-126 road win on Thursday. Despite the team’s late arrival to South Beach (or early, depending on who you ask), the 27-year-old guard displayed the best offense he has to offer. He also totaled seven rebounds and five steals, showing his continued impact on the court.

Amid a spectacular March in which he scored 327 points over an eight-game span, Doncic is raising an important question. Why isn’t he getting more attention in the MVP race? Lakers head coach JJ Redick replied.

“Because he complains to the refs, I don’t know,” he said in the postgame press conference, according to the NBA Courtside X account. One might speculate that Redic might be being sarcastic, but it’s not so absurd to think that Doncic’s reactionary behavior earns him a certain level of support from fans and writers.

JJ Redick was asked why Luka isn't talked about more in MVP talks:

"Because he complains to the refs, Idk." pic.twitter.com/wY7Ep541zL

— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) March 20, 2026

The 2023-24 scoring champion is one of the worst offenders when it comes to irritating the officials about no-calls. Instead of creating ruckus in the court, he will repeatedly argue his point heatedly. Doncic has improved in this area recently, but he remains under intense scrutiny due to his many blowups.

However, if he maintains his current level throughout the remainder of the campaign, even an ill-timed expression of emotion may not be enough to rule him out. Doncic was averaging an NBA-leading 33.0 points a game with 8.5 assists, 7.9 rebounds and 1.5 steals entering Thursday’s contest with the Heat. He’s shooting 36.6 percent from 3-point range, burying opponents with a step-back jumper that seems unstoppable at times.

Most importantly, No. 77’s stellar numbers are carrying his team forward. The Lakers are currently in third place in the Western Conference with a 45–25 record. If they continue to win games, Luka Doncic may have a legitimate chance to snatch the MVP crown from Gilgeous-Alexander’s head.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ winning streak reached eight games after a 134-126 win against the Miami Heat on Thursday. The Lakers also improved to 3-0 on their current road trip, and the win was capped off by a 60-point explosion from Luka Doncic. But amid Doncic’s big game, LeBron James left his mark on the Lakers’ win with a triple double, according to Melissa Rohlin of the California Post, prompting head coach JJ Redick to drop the mic with three words.

“He’s a psychopath,” Redick said after the Lakers’ win against the Heat.

LeBron James finished with 19 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists, giving him his second triple-double of the season. Also impressive was the fact that the Lakers were playing the second night of a back-to-back, a game that James was initially listed as questionable to play in.

He shot 8 of 12 from the field and 3 of 5 from the free-throw line in 38 minutes of play. James had another incredible performance in the Lakers’ win against the Houston Rockets last night, when he dropped 30 points while missing only one shot (13 of 14).

Earlier this season, when James returned to the Lakers’ lineup after missing the first 14 games of the season due to a nerve injury, he was missing both games of a back-to-back set. But that’s where he’s been for most of the season since the New Year as the Lakers continue to battle for playoff position in the Western Conference.

James was selected for his 22nd consecutive All-Star appearance, however, his streak of 21 consecutive All-NBA team finishes ended as he did not reach the league’s 65-game mandate to be eligible for postseason honors.

After the win against the Heat, the Lakers improved to 45–25, two full games ahead of the No. 4 Minnesota Timberwolves. The team will visit the Orlando Magic on Saturday before concluding their road trip with games against the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers.

On Wednesday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers continued their winning ways with their second consecutive victory over the Houston Rockets. LeBron James had a stellar game, scoring 30 points on an incredible 13-14 from the field, helping guide his team to consecutive wins.

After the game, Lakers head coach JJ Redick made a humorous quip, joking that watching James do what he does at age 41 “makes me feel like a loser.”

After this James responded with a funny comment.

“If he’s a loser, we’re all in deep shit,” James said, according to X, formerly of Oh No He Didn’t, on Twitter.

Redick has earned the respect of both the Lakers players and fanbase over the past few seasons in Los Angeles, guiding the team to the number three seed in the Western Conference a season ago, a spot they currently hold in the standings as the 2025-26 season enters its home stretch.

This time, the Lakers will hope for a better playoff result than the five-game shellacking they received from the Minnesota Timberwolves in the postseason last year, and if their recent play is any indication, Los Angeles could be a very scary opponent in the playoffs this year.

Right now, the Lakers are playing their best defense of the season, featuring James off the ball more to conserve energy, and Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves showing better effort on that end of the floor.

It also helps that the Lakers are on offense right now, but when that finally settles down, they’ll still have all the tools they need to scare Western Conference contenders in the coming months.

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers earned their second consecutive win against one of the better teams in the NBA after a 120-106 win against the Minnesota Timberwolves, but the talk of the night was Bam Adebayo’s 83-point masterclass during the Miami Heat’s win against the Washington Wizards. Lakers head coach JJ Redick tuned into the Heat game to watch the final minutes of Adebayo’s night.

After the Lakers’ win against the Timberwolves, JJ Redick admitted that he initially didn’t know what was going on, and once he realized, he described what he felt after watching Bam Adebayo drop 83 points.

“It’s incredible what he was able to do. I went in and I looked at the score, and he [Bam] Was on the free-throw line, and I looked at the score, and they’ve been playing great basketball lately,” Redick recalled. “I told my coaching staff, ‘Oh, they’re on a roll.’ They all looked at each other and said, ‘Are you kidding right now?’

“And I say, ‘No, what’s going on?’…They say, ‘Bam has 77.’ And then I watched the last three minutes, and it was a different type of basketball.

There’s no doubt Redick was referring to the final moments when it became clear the Heat were trying to bring in Adebayo to surpass former Lakers star Kobe Bryant’s 81-point performance. This included some intentional fouls by the Heat to gain extra possession to extend the game and get the ball back into Adebayo’s hands.

But at the end of the day, Adebayo’s name went down in NBA history with the second-highest individual scoring performance behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points.

LOS ANGELES – Luka Doncic picked up his 15th technical foul of the season amid more interaction with the referees during the Los Angeles Lakers’ 120-113 loss against the Denver Nuggets on Thursday. Another technical foul and Doncic would automatically receive a one-game suspension. But amid their interactions on the court, Lakers head coach JJ Redick believes Doncic’s competitive fire is second to none.

Before the Lakers’ game against the Indiana Pacers on Friday, JJ Redick explained how he will go to battle with Doncic every night.

“He’s a special type of player, a special type of person and a special type of competitor,” Redick said during his pregame press conference. “I’d prefer someone who’s going out every night and trying to kill, rather than someone who you literally have to revive with a defibrillator every other day. I’d take Luca all day.”

Doncic’s latest interaction with the referee resulted in a technical foul that was somewhat puzzling. Jamal Murray hit a 3-point shot in transition, and one of the officials immediately called a technical foul on Doncic, despite him not even looking the referee’s way as he walked back onto the court.

Doncic was incredibly heartbroken by what happened, and was not given a full explanation until after the game via the pool report. Crew chief Ed Malloy explained that the technical foul on Doncic actually occurred before the game, but officials called for the defense not to stop the transition play for the technical foul. The argument was that Doncic had used profanity toward officials earlier in the play.

The Lakers have 19 games remaining in the regular season after Friday’s matchup against the Pacers. Teams will definitely have to be aware of Doncic’s technical fouls and reactions during the final stretch of the year. Once the playoffs arrive, the technical foul count is reset, but suspensions begin early with seven.

Doncic is in the running for the MVP award this season, his first full year with the Lakers. Coming into Friday’s game, he had appeared in 50 games averaging just over 35 minutes per game. He is averaging a league-leading 32.3 points, 7.8 rebounds, 8.6 assists and 1.4 steals while shooting 47.3 percent from the field, 35.8 percent from the 3-point line and 77 percent from the free-throw line.

Doncic is also leading the NBA in 3-point shot attempts (3.7), 3-point shot attempts (10.2) and free-throw attempts (10.3).

The Los Angeles Lakers are dealing with complications after a three-game losing streak a week ago left some fans nervous about the state of the team. However, since then the Lakers have won three straight games, including a 110-101 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night.

It was a masterclass on the defensive end that paved the way for the Lakers to victory. They outscored the Pelicans 34–23 in the final frame, and had a stretch where they were getting their hands on the Pelicans’ ballhandler on every drive. This showed that a team can have an advantage on the defensive end when they have active hands and when they are locked in as a unit.

In fact, the win impressed Lakers head coach JJ Redick to such an extent that he compared to That’s the kind of wins they were getting earlier in the season as they started the 2025-26 campaign with a 15-4 record.

Redick said in his postgame presser, via Benjamin Royer of the Orange County Register, “To be honest, this isn’t a win we’ve had since probably November, where we’re down. We had a lot of early wins when we started 15-4, we had a lot of double-digit deficits in the second half and we stuck with it and kept playing. It was a good win for us to be able to do that again.”

JJ Redick on the Lakers’ 110-101 win over the Pelicans, comparing it to the team’s 15-4 win earlier in the season:

“Frankly, this is not a win that we have probably had since November.” pic.twitter.com/PaH8UG6NHO

– Benjamin Royer (@thebenroyer) 4 March 2026

Lakers match Pelicans’ physicality

Redick also credited Marcus Smart and Jackson Hayes for stepping up and helping the Lakers assert themselves defensively in the second half, leading to a comfortable win in the end.

Redick said, “The big emphasis for us in the pregame and on film was just our physicality. You have to match Zion’s physicality. Match Saddiq Bey’s physicality. I thought Smart was unbelievable tonight. When we got back into the game defensively in the second half, he and Jackson helped us win the game. They changed the game.”

The Los Angeles Lakers snapped a three-game losing streak with a 129-101 win against the Golden State Warriors on Saturday. The Lakers showed from start to finish the type of complete effort that head coach JJ Redick has been asking for all season.

Some of the Lakers’ issues this season may be due to inconsistency in the lineup and rotation due to injuries, and JJ Redick acknowledged this after the team’s win against the Warriors. But part of it also has to do with the energy and intensity, or lack thereof, that the Lakers have shown at times.

But after a full 48-minute effort against the Warriors, Redick admitted he believes the team will eventually get to the level he wants them to be before the season is over.

“As I said before the game, these guys want to make it right. They’re trying. I know our staff, I know myself, we’re always looking for answers and solutions. That’s it, we’re trying to find solutions,” Redick said during his postgame press conference. “I am confident that we will reach the level we want to reach.”

Redick further said, “It’s partially due to the disruption of the lineup and different factors. We haven’t had the consistency I thought we were going to have coming into this year.” “It’s taken longer than I thought, but I’m confident we’ll get there.”

After the win against the Warriors, the Lakers improved to 35–24 on the season. They are just two games behind the No. 3 seed Houston Rockets in what is shaping up to be a competitive race for position in the Western Conference during the regular season.

There are only three and a half games that separate the No. 3 seed and the No. 7 seed. The Phoenix Suns are currently in seventh place. The No. 7 seed will be directly out of the playoffs and will have to go through the play-ins.

Last season, the Lakers finished with the third seed in the West playoff picture, but were eliminated in the opening round by the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games.

Redick is in his second year as head coach of the Lakers, and the team is currently in sixth place in the West standings. They are only a game and a half up on the Suns and potentially falling into the play-ins. They have 22 games left in the regular season to continue showing the level of competitiveness Redick is confident they can reach.