JJ Redick unhappy with Lakers’ effort in loss to Memphis

MEMPHIS, Tenn. —  LeBron James glared at the Lakers’ bench, another chance squandered, another run by the Memphis Grizzlies delivered.

There wasn’t much else he could do Wednesday night on the final game of the Lakers’ first road trip. He’d attacked mismatches. He’d swished home triples. He’d fought like hell with Memphis’ giant front line.

His team was short-handed. Anthony Davis’ heel contusion, an injury he suffered Monday in Detroit, kept the All-NBA forward out of action. An illness did the same to their other starting forward, Rui Hachimura.

Unlike the losses in Cleveland and Detroit that ensured this trip would be a clunker, this wasn’t about fight. The Lakers had shown up for that. But as his team’s deficit grew from two to 11 after Memphis his three consecutive threes, James looked at the bench.

It wasn’t anger. It was exasperation. The Lakers were going to eventually lose, 131-114, and he couldn’t stop it.

James was terrific — he scored 39 points, made six threes and played with force. His team did too. The Lakers just couldn’t make enough shots. And they didn’t do enough of the other things that their leader was doing.

“LeBron was fantastic tonight,” coach JJ Redick said after the game. “Biggest thing that stood out. I had no idea he’d hit 39 until [after]. I’m not looking at the box scores during the game. But he played hard. Almost 40 years old and played the hardest on our team.

“It says a lot about him.”

And it says a lot about the rest of the Lakers, save for a few like backup forward Cam Reddish, who had his second strong game in a row.

Asked if he was satisfied with the effort, Redick replied, “None of us are.” Asked how he addressed it with the team, Redick said it was the first thing he did after the game. James weighed in too.

“At the end of the day, especially when you lose bodies, you got to compete. You got to compete even harder,” James said. “You got to be out there giving it everything that you got and on both ends. I think there were times that we did that, but the majority of the time, I don’t think we sustained energy and effort.”

Maybe it was all the shots they missed.

D’Angelo Russell put his hands to his head in disbelief as one three rattled out. Austin Reaves yelled at himself after one of his seven misses. And Dalton Knecht, getting his first NBA start, missed all but one of his seven shots from three-point range, including an airball.

Meanwhile Memphis punished the Lakers with mini-flurries from its role players. Rookie Jaylen Wells hit back-to-back threes. So did center Jay Huff, as he and another a former two-way player for the Lakers, Scotty Pippen Jr., did damage to their old team, Pippen posing in front of his former bench after hitting one of his three threes.

Redick pulled Russell from the game midway through the third quarter after afterward pointed to his “level of compete, attention to detail, some of the things we’ve talked with him about for a couple of weeks.”

“And at times he’s been really good with that stuff. And other times, it’s just reverting back to certain habits,” Redick said. “But it wasn’t like a punishment. It just felt for us to have a chance to win this game, that was the route we wanted to take.”

Grizzlies star Ja Morant, who tied for the team high with 20 points, had to leave the game because of a hamstring injury. But with Grizzlies making 17 threes, they had more than enough.

In addition to the Lakers’ cold shooting, Knecht had to leave the game after being elbowed in the jaw by Memphis’ Jake LaRavia. After having his jaw examined on the sideline, he went back to the locker room.

The Lakers finished their trip 1-4. They play Friday at home against Philadelphia, starting a stretch of six of eight games at Crypto.com Arena.

Before the game, Redick said the ups and downs of the season and the problems that emerge present exciting problems to solve. As the team headed home, dealing with its first bit of adversity, Redick challenged his players.

“It goes back to choices. I think [that’s] something that we’ve discussed as a group. And you have a choice every night for how you play — and it has nothing to do with making shots,” he said. “…There’s got to be a group of people, seven, eight guys, that make that choice. And [then] we’re a really good basketball team. [When] we have a handful, we have two or three, we’re not gonna be a good basketball team that night.

“So that’s just the reality. That’s my biggest takeaway, to be honest.”