LOS ANGELES (AP) 鈥� Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick downplayed his mid-game shouting match with Jarred Vanderbilt on Tuesday night, calling it a normal occurrence during a stressful time for his injury-depleted team.
Redick and Vanderbilt repeatedly exchanged words in a visible, vocal argument after Redick called a timeout and removed Vanderbilt from just 16 seconds into the second quarter.
Redick said the argument was caused by 鈥渏ust a confluence of things,” declining to be specific about what Vanderbilt had done wrong.
鈥淣othing personal with him,鈥� Redick added. “Normal stuff from my end. I think for all of us, being undermanned, we鈥檝e got to scrap and claw. We鈥檝e got to all be on the same page. We’ve got to be great teammates. We’ve got to all play hard. I called a timeout to get him out of the game, and he reacted.鈥�
After Redick called the timeout, Vanderbilt approached him on the court. When Vanderbilt became demonstrative, Austin Reaves 鈥� who didn’t play due to injury 鈥� stepped between his teammate and the head coach, along with assistant coach Nate McMillan.
Vanderbilt continued the discussion when Redick sat on the bench after the timeout, and Redick made a dismissive gesture in Vanderbilt鈥檚 direction that appeared to irritate Vanderbilt further.
Vanderbilt didn鈥檛 return to the game after being pulled, and he left the Lakers鈥� downtown arena without speaking to reporters.
Vanderbilt made his only shot and had two rebounds and a steal during his 4 1/2 minutes of play, but he also missed three consecutive free throws right before the first-quarter buzzer. The defensive specialist has played inconsistent minutes for Redick this season, struggling to bring his offensive game up to a level that would allow him to be a rotation regular.
faced the Thunder without NBA scoring leader Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Reaves, Marcus Smart and Jaxson Hayes , and the result was predictable: Oklahoma City routed the Lakers 123-87, sending them to their third consecutive loss after winning 13 of their previous 14.
The defeat was Los Angeles’ first at home since Feb. 24, ending a 10-game winning streak. The Lakers (50-29) slipped a full game behind streaking Denver (51-28) for the third seed in the Western Conference playoff picture, while only the tiebreaker is keeping the Lakers above the surging Houston Rockets (50-29) in fifth for now.
Until Doncic and Reaves both were lost for the rest of the regular season 鈥� and probably longer 鈥� during a week ago, they were surging toward a top-three seed with hopes of a significant playoff run. While Redick hasn’t publicly given up on that chance, he acknowledged before the game that any attempt to play for better seeding 鈥減robably went out the window after the (first) OKC game.鈥�
Redick didn’t mince many words about his healthy players after the Lakers’ lowest-scoring performance of the season 鈥� an effort that inexplicably included 17 missed free throws.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got to find nine guys that are, like, all in on us fighting,鈥� Redick said. 鈥淲hatever you鈥檝e got to do to go out and fight and be all in on the team, we鈥檒l find the nine guys. It鈥檚 a great opportunity for us over the next three games to find those guys.鈥�
The coach said he called an earlier timeout to remove Rui Hachimura from the game because the forward 鈥渄idn’t do his job.鈥�
Redick also said starting center Deandre Ayton has 鈥渉ad trouble catching the ball. We’ve had a bunch of plays for him. He’s just had trouble catching the ball, and I don’t know if that’s the passing or him trying to get position. He just hasn’t been able to catch the ball.鈥�
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