ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins points the finger at the man he says is always pointing the finger.
After the Lakers’ 119-96 Christmas loss at home to the Rockets, head coach JJ Redick called out his “terrible” team for the inexcusable effort.
He also found himself in the team earlier this week after another lopsided loss to the Suns.
“Yes, two words of the day were effort and execution. When we’ve done both of those things at a high level, we’ve been a good basketball team. When we haven’t, we’ve been a terrible basketball team,” Redick said.
He scorched them without mentioning who was the real problem from his point of view, but did say it was “fairly consistent” who had lacked effort and care for the team.
Perkins thought that rant in itself was terrible.
“It’s always somebody else’s fault. It’s never JJ Redick’s fault,” Perkins said Friday on ESPN’s “Get Up.” “I watched the game last night. Did I see LeBron James pouting the entire game? Did I see LeBron’s bad body language? Absolutely. Did I see him not putting in the defensive effort, getting back into transition and only having two rebounds in a game last night when you know a team loves to hit the glass and grab offensive rebounds? Did I see your best franchise player, Luka Doncic, complaining after every call? You’re damn right. I did.”
“But JJ, why don’t they care? Why don’t they play hard? Why don’t they try to compete on the defensive side of things. You’re the coach, that’s a reflection of you. If your team doesn’t respond and go out and compete at a high level defensively and play hard, that means they’re off the charts or they lack some respect for you. So there has to be a little bit of accountability across the board.”
The Lakers had a successful season last year after adding Doncic to their roster in a major trade from the Mavericks that blew up the league.
They finished 50-32 before losing 4-1 to the Timberwolves in the first round of the playoff.
They got off to a good start this season at 15-4, but the Lakers have taken a turn for the worse, losing six of their last ten games and being outscored by an average of 9.6 points per game.
Rui Hachimura had a tough night on Thursday, scoring zero points on 0-6 shooting in 28 minutes.
Meanwhile, James had a solid game, finishing with 18 points and five assists.
They haven’t performed well defensively when on the court at the same time, with lineups worried that James and Hachimura would register one of the NBA’s worst defensive ratings (127.2).
The Lakers (19-10) will have to prove themselves on Sunday against the West’s worst Kings (7-23).
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