JJ Redick didn’t hide his frustration after the Lakers’ 131-125 win over the Raptors, zeroing in on what he saw as a night full of contact that never got whistled.
The Lakers coach said Toronto’s physical defense had a real impact on the game’s rhythm, even though the Raptors were called for 26 fouls. Redick also pointed to Los Angeles’ 24 turnovers and argued that several of them came on plays where his team was being grabbed and hacked without a whistle.
“We scored 131 with 24 turnovers. You guys can see it.
Some of those turnovers are because we’re legitimately getting fouled. It’s not like, ‘Was that a foul?
Was that not a foul?’ You can’t.”
Redick said he made his case directly to one of the officials, describing what he sees as a common defensive move across the league.
“I told one of the referees this, because all these guys do, all the defenders now, is they pick you up, then they grab the arm you’re not dribbling with, and then they try to steal the ball from you. We saw it. Famously, Cason Wallace did it with TJ McConnell, and that’s just the NBA right now.”
Still, Redick didn’t put every turnover on the officiating. He said the Lakers were able to fight through the physicality, but admitted some of the giveaways were self-inflicted.
“It’s really hard when you have teams like this that are just fouling on every possession. I thought we did enough to play through it, but a lot of those turnovers are just that.
Then you can point to some decision-making, some passes, all that stuff. Those naturally happen within the flow of the game.”
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