JJ Redick takes the blame as the Lakers lose for the first time

PHOENIX – Before his first regular season game as head coach of the Lakers, JJ Redick made a prediction.

“It will drive me crazy if we lose,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”

It took a week for the Lakers to see what that looked like.

Redick, in his postgame press conference, took responsibility for the Lakers' 14-point second-quarter effort and for hesitancy to double-team Kevin Durant, two key factors, he said, in his team's 109-105 loss to the Suns on Monday night.

“He’s mad,” big man Anthony Davis said of his new coach.

Redick was visibly excited as he talked about the Lakers' second-quarter offense, their worst of the young season.

“We should never have a 14-point district,” he said. “So that’s also up to me. I am part of it. I have to make sure we have a good offense. I felt like it was a bit random. We were slowed down. We talked about it at halftime. For us to be a high-caliber offense, we have to move bodies and move the ball. You have to check. They kind of unbalanced us in the beginning and we were great in the second half. We showed a great performance in the second half.

“It’s just the second quarter that really hurt us.”

After speaking to his team, Redick punctuated his speech with a four-letter expletive.

“Just shows how much he cares,” guard Austin Reaves said. “His passion is on another level. You can feel every single second of every day that he is committed to improving our group.”

Redick stood behind his other decisions in the game, including two crucial decisions late in the game.

With the Lakers trailing by three points with 40.5 seconds remaining, Redick designed a play to give Reaves a three-pointer. Reaves, who made five three-pointers on Monday night, failed.

“I thought it was a great look. “It just didn’t work out,” he said. “You wish you could have her back. I’ve been thinking about it since the game ended.”

The other decision came on the next offensive possession after the Lakers got a defensive stop and another chance to equalize. Rather than risk the Lakers' chance at a three-pointer, Phoenix intentionally fouled LeBron James with 6.4 seconds left. After making the first free throw to cut the lead to two, James intentionally missed the second to grab an offensive rebound. Royce O'Neal eventually came down with the ball and the Suns held on and won.

“We didn’t have any time off. It was a decision we made. I think this is the right choice and I would make this choice again,” Redick said. “In that time they made three mistakes. Even if we fouled earlier in that play, they have great free throw shooters. They will insult us again. So we had to get possession of the ball to have a chance of tying or winning.”

The frustration afterward came because the Lakers were playing so well early in the game before the 14-point blowout. The team led 26-8 less than seven minutes into the game as Davis, who had been named Western Conference Player of the Week earlier in the day, continued to dominate.

He finished the game with 29 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks to lead the Lakers.

But after he was forced to the bench with 16 early points, Durant and Devin Booker helped the Suns quickly get back into the game. At the start of the third quarter the lead had already been lost until the Lakers increased it to seven again at the start of the fourth quarter.

But James, who had a 3-for-14 shooting night despite an illness, and Davis couldn't match the fourth-quarter magic they showed in their win over Sacramento on Saturday. The Lakers scored just one field goal with 3:30 left in the finale – a James three.

“Losses are inevitable in this league. But how you play and how you continue to play every week and every single game determines what kind of team you want to be,” James said. “So I think we still did some great things despite the loss tonight. Obviously we did some things that we could have been better at. The 14-point win in the second quarter that brought them back into the game. We started the fourth quarter with seven players and let them get back into the game straight away. So we can be much better at that. But we did a lot of good things tonight.”

And perhaps the best part came from Redick, who decided that he was as big a part of the problem as anyone else involved in the defeat.

“It just shows what a great leader looks like,” Reaves said.