Following their loss to crosstown rivals LA Clippers, the Los Angeles Lakers were frustrated. Both superstar LeBron James and Lakers head coach JJ Redick said the Lakers can’t be sloppy because the team has little margin for error.
James seems to indicate that it’s an issue with the roster construction, as opposed to something that can be fixed internally.
“Nah. That’s how our team is constructed. We don’t have room for error – for much error,” James said when asked how the Lakers fix things.
When pressed with a follow-up question, James said his team needs to play nearly perfect basketball to win.
“We don’t have a choice. I mean… that’s the way our team is constructed. And we have to, we have to play close-to-perfect basketball, James said.”
Redick echoed his star player’s comments. The Lakers coach preferred to focus on what his team can do differently, as opposed to fixating on the way the roster was built.
“We don’t have a huge margin for error. Nor can we create that margin organically,” Redick said. “It has to be emphasized daily to touch the paint, to play paint-to-great mentality, make the extra pass. We don’t have a guy on our team that’s going to necessarily always draw two to the ball. We don’t have a guy on our team that’s going to be able to get past his guy one-on-one and get to the paint and spread it out to the perimeter. Like, that’s just not our team. So we have to do it through connectivity, through execution. And when we do that, we’re really good.”