The Los Angeles Lakers’ hot start to the 2024-25 NBA season seems like it took place in a very distant past. After going 3-0 to start the JJ Redick Era, Los Angeles has won just one of five games, which were all played away from Tinseltown.
In the finale of their road trip, the Lakers suffered a 131-114 loss at the hands of Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies, a game where guard D’Angelo Russell saw only 22 minutes of action on the floor — the fewest he’s had in a game so far this season.
Russell barely saw action in the second half where he only played a total of a little over six minutes. After the game, Redick shed some light on the decision to curb Russell’s playing time against the Grizzlies.
JJ Redick speaks up about D’Angelo Russell’s benching during Lakers vs. Grizzlies
It appears that Redick was not impressed with Russell’s performance, forcing him to make the decision to bench the former Ohio State Buckeyes star for the most part of the game’s final two quarters.
Via Daniel Starkand of Lakers Nation:
JJ Redick on why D’Angelo Russell only played 22 minutes:
“Level of compete. Attention to detail. Some of the things we’ve talked with him about a couple of weeks. At times he’s been really good, other times it’s just reverting to certain habits. It wasn’t like a. punishment, but for us to have a chance to win this game, that was the route we wanted to take. Gabe in the first half, especially defensively, was fantastic. I just wanted to see what that looked like.”
Russell finished the game with 12 points on 4-for-12 shooting from the field, including a 2-for-9 line from behind the arc. It will be interesting to see how many minutes he will get when Los Angeles returns home for Friday’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers.
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