JJ Redick reveals reality of preparing for Lakers’ tough playoff series vs. Rockets

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers controlled what they could with a 131-107 win against the Utah Jazz on the final day of the regular season. But with the Denver Nuggets defeating the San Antonio Spurs, the Lakers were locked into the No. 4 seed and will face the Houston Rockets in the opening round of the NBA playoffs. Regardless of the opponent, head coach JJ Redick has preached the same mentality.

Following the Lakers’ win against the Jazz, JJ Redick explained how coming into the playoffs, the team prepared the same way for whomever their series opponent might be. Now that it’s been revealed to be the Rockets, the Lakers can tweak their preparation ever so slightly to plan for a specific opponent.

“We have tried for the last six weeks to build towards the playoffs both in our mentality, with our habits, all that stuff. We knew the reality, whether we got 3-4-5-6, whatever it was, there’s no easy matchups,” Redick said. “All those teams slotted, they are tough teams whether it was going to end up being Denver, Minnesota or Houston. Houston’s obviously a really, really good basketball team, and we’re gonna prepare and we’re gonna fight and we’re gonna try to win the series.

“Going into today, we told the team it’s not about the opponent, it’s about us. And now it is about the opponent. And we’re gonna do everything we can to get our guys in a great dream of mind, great physical shape over the next four or five days and be ready to play.”

The Lakers won the season series against the Rockets, 2-1. The Lakers dropped the first matchup on Christmas Day in embarrassing fashion. But the two recent wins against the Rockets last month were among the Lakers’ most impressive wins of the season.

But with the reality of Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves potentially missing the entire first round of the playoffs, it’s going to be a challenging task. But for Redick, he’s encouraged in the sense that the Lakers have been very resilient over the past week in the face of adversity.

“Resiliency, the playoffs to me are all about resiliency, and part of that is the euphemism … of not letting go of the rope. You’re playing one opponent in the playoffs and there’s a bunch of things that are going to happen, some good, some bad,” Redick said. “You may get down in a series, you may get down in a game, you may get down in the game on the road and you just have to play with resiliency … the team that is unwilling to let go of the rope for the longest amount of time, that’s ultimately the team that wins the series.”

The Lakers will host Game 1 against the Rockets on Saturday night, followed by Game 2 before the series will shift to Houston.

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