JJ Redick credits Lakers ‘compete level’ against Timberwolves

Despite the loss, Lakers coach JJ Redick liked the effort his team gave during their first preseason game.

The Lakers lost to the Timberwolves on Friday to open up preseason action.

With their big two, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, not suiting up, the process mattered far more than the result.

Lakers coach JJ Redick talked postgame about the team’s ability to execute their goals, complimenting his squad on its intensity but noting that he needs more organization moving forward.

“I told our guys before the game, you know, three things I’m going to judge you on and how we are going to measure this game,” Redick said. “Our organization, our talk and in our level of compete and I thought the third one, we had that at a really high level. The other two, we got to get better.”

With rookies like Dalton Knecht and Bronny James getting significant run it’s encouraging to hear that they were told what the standard would be in terms of effort and that they matched that requirement.

Organization and communication being the weak spots isn’t ideal, but it is expected this early on. After all, this is Redick’s first year as a coach and having new plays and establishing them with his younger guys won’t be easy, nor will it happen quickly.

Without hearing more of what Redick means by communication, it sounds like they weren’t helping each other enough verbally to avoid breakdowns on both ends of the floor.

This was visible in how careless the Lakers were with the ball on the offensive side, where they had 21 turnovers. Defensively, they struggled to keep the Timberwolves out of the paint and lost the rebounding battle 41-38.

Anthony Davis and LeBron James are expected to play on Sunday against the Suns, which should raise the competition level even higher and allow them to show the younger players how to communicate and execute better.

The results in these preseason games might not matter, but the attention to detail certainly does.

With the focus already where it needs to be and an intense training camp underway, it’s looking like Redick might maximize this team’s potential once the games count.

You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.