JJ Redick Rips Lakers After Loss to Nets: 'I Don't Know What We're Doing'

The shorthanded Los Angeles Lakers played just nine players—and relied heavily on six of them—in a 111-108 loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night at the Barclays Center. Headlining the list of Lakers’ absences was LeBron James, sidelined due to a groin injury, but several other rotation regulars including Dorian Finney-Smith, Rui Hachimura, Jaxson Hayes and Maxi Kleber were also unavailable.

But Lakers coach JJ Redick, visibly upset while speaking to reporters after the game, wasn't willing to use injuries as an excuse.

"I don't think being shorthanded is an excuse for how we played basketball tonight," Redick said.

Rather than wave off the result due to the team’s injuries, Redick said it was a "low-level communication" game for his club, and criticized the energy the Lakers played with against the Nets.

"I think it was just an overall mentality to take shortcuts tonight," Redick said. "We just wanted to take shortcuts. They scored 20 points on us gambling. They had 16 offensive rebounds and we ball-watched all night. We said no dare shots ... They probably made six, seven uncontested threes."

"Just shortcuts. If you wanna be a good team and win in the NBA, you gotta do the hard stuff. We couldn't even pass to each other. We couldn't enter our offense ... Running ball screens at literally half-court. Yeah that's gonna end up in a turnover. I don't know what we're doing."

Los Angeles was riding an eight-game win streak to close February and begin March, and entered Monday's game 8-3 in the 11 games since Luka Doncic was acquired from the Dallas Mavericks in Feb. The Lakers have been playing well lately. But Redick was displeased with the mentality, effort and execution he saw from his team against a Nets team that's 20 games below .500.

"We just gotta be better," Redick said. "And we'll use practice to clean things up and make sure everybody's on the same page."

The Lakers (40-23) have two days off before a back-to-back against the Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets on Thursday and Friday, respectively.