Jj Redick Had Honest Admission About Playing Without Lebron James In Loss To Warriors

The LeBron James-less Lakers dropped nan season-opener to nan Warriors 119-109 connected Tuesday nighttime astatine Crypto.com Arena. And while coach JJ Redick mostly succeeded astatine nan task of creating a productive discourtesy without James acknowledgment to beardown efforts from Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves, it was admittedly difficult astatine times for nan Lakers coach to not deliberation astir what nan merchandise could look for illustration pinch nan early Hall of Famer connected nan floor.

"It's difficult to hide astir LeBron," Redick said aft nan game. "The reality is erstwhile you're focused connected nan group that you have, you gotta make that group work. So sometimes you tin conscionable beryllium like, 'Oh, ohio my god, we're going to get LeBron back. It's awesome.'

"I'll beryllium honorable pinch you, I did person 1 infinitesimal successful that first half erstwhile we had a fewer possessions we couldn't people against nan area it'd beryllium awesome to person Lebron conscionable to propulsion it to successful nan precocious post."

RELATED: How Luka Dončić Fared successful Lakers’ Season Debut Without LeBron James

It's difficult not to blasted Redick for letting that thought popular into his head. The Lakers weren't bad offensively necessarily, three-point struggles aside. Los Angeles changeable 54.7% from nan field. But thing was missing.

For complete a three-minute agelong of crippled clip successful nan first quarter, nan Lakers grounded to people a bucket, a troubling agelong that apt had Redick's mind wandering a spot towards nan four-time NBA MVP pinch complete 40,000 profession points scored seated connected nan bench. The likes of Dončić and Reaves mixed to people complete 60% of nan Lakers' points.

Redick told reporters he "wasn't concerned" astir Dončić's dense workload.

And contempt nan Lakers' loss, Redick believes overmuch of Los Angeles's shortcomings connected some sides of nan ball—chemistry betwixt players specified arsenic Dončić and Ayton, missed protect assignments—can beryllium attributed to "self-inflicted wounds."

"...I deliberation it's mostly self-inflicted," Redick said. "I deliberation if you look astatine this game, for illustration a microcosm of this crippled was we did capable bully things to put ourselves successful a position to triumph for astir of nan crippled and erstwhile we didn't do those things, they were self-inflicted."

More NBA connected Sports Illustrated