J.J. Redick speaks on whether Lakers were ‘haunted’ mentally by Nuggets

Los Angeles Lakers head coach J.J. Redick doesn’t believe that the Lakers’ previous issues against the Denver Nuggets “haunted” them in Saturday night’s loss.

“I have a pretty clear idea of what happened in the third,” Redick said. “But whatever it was, it was not because we were haunted by the ghosts of the past or something like that. It was kind of obvious to me what happened there. Just not the right spirit.”

The Lakers were outscored 37-15 by Denver in the third quarter, paving the way for them to lose 127-102 on Saturday night.

The loss dropped the Lakers to 10-6 on the season, and it was only the team’s second home loss (in nine games) of the 2024-25 campaign.

Redick took responsibility for some of the Lakers’ struggles on the defensive end.

“Some of coaching is playing whack-a-mole,” Redick said. “Me and my staff will take some ownership on that as well. It’s not just players not executing the game plan. It’s all of us. We’re all on the same team. We all want the same outcome. We all want to be a good defensive team. So we’ve got to figure out that together.”

Nikola Jokic dominated the Lakers on Saturday, scoring 34 points on 12-of-20 shooting from the field while grabbing 13 rebounds and dishing out eight assists. In addition to Jokic, forward Michael Porter Jr. (24 points) and guard Russell Westbrook (14 points, seven rebounds and 11 assists off the bench) had big games for Denver.

Denver has now won five straight games against the Lakers in the regular season, and it has knocked Los Angeles out of the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.

In the 2022-23 season, the Lakers were swept by Jokic and the Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals. Then, in the 2023-24 season, Los Angeles mustered just one win against Denver in the first round of the playoffs.

Clearly, the Lakers have issues matching up with Denver’s personnel, and Redick will be tasked with finding a way to end the team’s struggles against the Nuggets.

The next time the Lakers and Nuggets face off will be on Feb. 22 in Denver.