JJ Redick was great during his first regular season in charge last year. The NBA player-turned-podcaster-turned-head coach won 50 games and led Los Angeles to the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.
He was able to accomplish this even with the Lakers doing a couple of massive trades during the year.
In the playoffs, it truly was a different season.
The Lakers had homecourt advantage but were outplayed in every way by the Wolves, losing in five games. It seemed that almost every game had an example of Redick’s inexperience showing up.
The Lakers were bullied physically by the Wolves in their Game 1 loss. Redick made zero substitutions during the second half of Game 4, resulting in Los Angeles blowing a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter. He wrapped it up by going small in Game 5 and making Rudy Gobert, an offensively inept big, look like prime Wilt Chamberlain.
Hindsight is 20/20, and with a summer to reflect, Redick discussed his biggest regrets from that series during an interview with Spectrum SportsNet during Monday’s media day.
“My biggest regret from the Minnesota series was our preparation leading into the series,” Redick said. “There was a lot of discussion with our coaching staff and, ultimately, I had to make the decision about what that week looks like in practice.
“And I said this after Game 1. We weren’t physically ready to play and some of that was because of our March schedule, some of that was because of some injuries, but I’ve got to do a better job going into a series of making sure they’re physically ready to play.”
Not to put words in Redick’s mouth, but it sounds like practice just wasn’t intense enough for the moment. That became clear once the Wolves established dominance in the first contest of this series.
That was certainly the sentiment in the moment. The Lakers appeared to be approaching this as just another game and the playoffs are certainly not that. Redick, as a former player, knows that, but being on the other side, it’s different in terms of what he must do as a coach.
What makes the postseason tricky is that you are only promised a couple of games, so if the adjustments aren’t made quickly, you are just out of luck and have to try again next year.
Redick also regretted how Game 5 went for the Lakers. He deviated from his defensive principles and the results were awful.
“Another regret from that series, I fundamentally don’t believe in putting two on the basketball,” Redick said. “Why are you giving the offense an advantage? Like, you’re creating an advantage. So, our foundation of our defense last year was a team defense based on shifts, based on a low man, based on elite presentation.
“Game 5, we started small and we blitzed Anthony Edwards, and they killed us in the first half on the offensive glass. I eventually took that off, but I didn’t put my team in a great spot because I made that decision to start Game 5.”
In that 103-96 defeat, Redick is 100% correct that it didn’t work. Edwards had 15 points and a team-high eight assists, so blitzing him didn’t give the Wolves offense any trouble. As he mentioned, they were dominated on the boards early on, with Minnesota grabbing 10 offensive rebounds in the first half. Overall, the Wolves had 54 rebounds, while the Lakers had only 37. Those numbers alone reveal who dominated the game.
As former Lakers head coach Darvin Ham once said, “It’s not just wins and losses, their wisdom and lessons.” From the sounds of it, Redick has taken that advice to heart and learned a great deal from this experience.
Now, we’ll see the adjustments he’ll make so that his second year as Lakers coach has more games in it than his first season did.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
