JJ Redick isn’t worried about NBA playoffs amid a 4-0 finish

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers finished the group game for the NBA Cup with 4-0 following their 129-119 win against the Dallas Mavericks on Friday. With the win, the Lakers secured home court advantage for the Dec. 10 quarterfinal round against the San Antonio Spurs. But the Lakers have more work to do before the NBA Cup knockout round, which is why he is the head coach JJ Redick he’s not too worried about the cup at the moment.

“I’m really pleased that we were able to go undefeated in our pool, our bracket … More importantly, we have back-to-back games coming up and a really tough road,” Redick said after the win against the Mavericks. “Phoenix is ​​playing great, New Orleans has a lot of talent. We’ve got to take care of business the next two games, and then we’ve got to be great on the road like we’ve been for most of the year outside of two games.”

“The cup is kind of a distant memory for the next 12 days,” Redick continued.

With the win against the Mavericks, the Lakers improved to 14-4 on the season, and still hold the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference standings. The aforementioned Redick is against the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday and against the Phoenix Suns on Monday.

After that, the Lakers embark on a three-game road trip with games against the Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers. All three have winning records and are among the top nine in the East standings.

Amid the Lakers’ strong start to the season, Redick is generally pleased with the team’s habits.

“I think the discipline of the game plan and the execution of the game plan has been pretty good all season and we’ve been building on that,” Redick said. “The standouts in that for me were the games where we lacked effort, we didn’t play hard, which was basically two games out of our 18. I think our communication habits, crowding the field, all those things were great. And then offensively, the organization and execution is significantly better than last year. And our ability to understand what we were really trying to do was good.”

The two games that Redick repeatedly mentioned in terms of a lackluster effort were the Lakers’ two road losses in early November when they lost to the Atlanta Hawks 122-102 and then fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-92. The Lakers were without LeBron James in both of those losses.

When the Lakers resume NBA Cup play in about two weeks, it will be interesting to see what the court looks like. The Lakers didn’t have their traditional cup court against the Mavericks to follow Luka Dončić’s complaint about the inadequacy of the court.