JJ Redick singles out where Thunder have hurt Lakers amid 0-2 hole

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers find themselves in an unenviable position, in an 0-2 hole as their Western Conference Semifinal series against the Oklahoma City Thunder shifts to their home court. While the Lakers are hoping to get back into the series with a Game 3 win, there is one particular problem they haven’t been able to solve with the Thunder, as per head coach JJ Redick.

Prior to Game 3, JJ Redick acknowledged that the Lakers have not been able to take advantage of the minutes that Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is not on the court. The Lakers’ defensive game plan has been to limit the reigning MVP, but it’s backfired in that the Thunder’s other players have found the seams and been able to attack.

“[Ajay] Mitchell and [Jared] McCain have hurt us in those non-Shai minutes, and then Chet’s [Holmgren] has hurt us the whole game. I think you got to be willing to live with something,” Redick said during his pregame press conference. “Shai playing one-on-one thus far in the series we haven’t been willing to live with.

“So you’re going to be in rotation that can lead to smalls on bigs in the hole, and the offensive rebounding from Chet has really hurt us.”

Through the first two games of this series, Ajay Mitchell has been averaging 19 points on 51.1 percent shooting from the field. McCain has been averaging 15 points while shooting 60.4 percent from the field. Both are above their season averages, and above their averages in the Thunder’s opening round series against the Portland Trail Blazers.

Holmgren on the other hand has been having a strong postseason overall. His rebounding is slightly up though at 10.5 per game and 3.0 offensive boards against the Lakers compared to his 8.5 and 1.3 offensive boards against the Blazers.

Despite the 0-2 series deficit and the Lakers’ struggles to contain the Thunder’s other key players outside of Gilgeous-Alexander, Redick believes the formula for limiting them is there. The Lakers have shown it in spurts during the first two games, just not as consistent as they need to be. Like with most things in the playoffs, it starts with physicality.

“We talk about it all the time, that first bump, we’ve done it at times, we just got to be more consistent,” Redick continued. “AR [Austin Reaves] has a couple ISOs on Mitchell where he got the first bump, prevented him from getting inside the paint. Rui had a great one against Holmgren in the second half, he ended up taking a fall-away 17-footer, missed it badly.

“It comes down to physicality with that. I think allowing Mitchell to get wherever he wants to go has hurt us.”

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