The Los Angeles Lakers’ injury list has grown so long this season that normalcy has become a luxury, and head coach JJ Redick knows it better than anyone.
Saturday night was the latest example. Los Angeles took the floor without Austin Reaves, Luka Doncic, Jaxson Hayes, or Deandre Ayton, forcing Redick to start Maxi Kleber at center and lean heavily on two-way players Drew Timme and Kobe Bufkin, who combined for 51 minutes.
Despite a career night from Timme, the Lakers were blown out by 16 points and completely overwhelmed on the glass.
Redick is so used to being low on troops at this point, its just the norm.
“We don’t go into games thinking tonight is gonna be rough or we can’t win,” Redick said via Spectrum SportsNet. “Our belief level, expectations and standards don’t change. This has been like the normal all season. We’ve won some games, we’ve actually beaten a lot of good teams. You play a team the second time around sometimes and you rewatch the game and you’re like oh shoot, we didn’t have Austin that game, or we didn’t have Luka that game, or we didn’t have Rui that game, or we didn’t have DA that game. So this has just been our season. And every team is going through it, I’m not trying to say we’re singled out. This is just been our season. You get one guy healthy, another guy gets injured. You get another guy back, another gets injured, two guys go out so now you play without your two centers. Just been our season.”
Redick’s comments came after another loss that slipped away early. The Lakers have now dropped 15 of their 16 losses this season by double figures, a trend that reflects how quickly games can spiral when lineups are patched together on the fly.
READ MORE: JJ Redick Calls Out ‘Envy’ as Lakers Coach Backs LeBron James