As Heat guard Tyler Herro went nuclear, hitting seven straight 3-pointers in the third quarter of a 134-93 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, it dawned on L.A. coach JJ Redick just how lost his team has become.
“We’re having trouble right now on both ends with, like, base-level game-plan stuff,” Redick said after the Lakers lost for the sixth time in the past eight games. “It’s odd. It’s very odd.”
Odder still is how a team that was 10-4 just two weeks ago, with a chance to make it 11-4 if it only hit some late free throws against the Orlando Magic, is suddenly in free fall, losing those six games by an average of 21.8 points.
“Has to be some ownership,” Redick said. “You can splinter, and it’s easy to not want the ownership, particularly when it’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed. We’re all embarrassed. It’s not a game that I thought we had the right fight, the right professionalism.”
Redick added: “There has to be some ownership on the court, and I’ll take all the ownership in the world. This is my team and I lead it and I’m embarrassed. But I can’t physically get us organized. I can’t physically be into the basketball. I can’t physically talk and call out [switches] and physically call out coverages.”
“By the way, I’m not blaming players. It’s not. I own this, but going to need some ownership on the court as well. …There’s not a sense from me that we’re together right now.”
