{"id":180585,"date":"2026-03-09T23:56:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=180585"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:57:27","slug":"jj-redick-talks-shooting-austin-reaves-athletic-youngster-lebron-james-injury-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/03\/09\/jj-redick-talks-shooting-austin-reaves-athletic-youngster-lebron-james-injury-update\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Redick Talks Shooting, Austin Reaves, Athletic Youngster, And LeBron James Injury Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> have had their ups and downs since the 2026 NBA trade deadline. But recent developments have given the Lakers some hope down the stretch.<\/p>\n

JJ Redick Talks Shooting, Athletic Youngster, And Lakers Injury Updates<\/h2>\n

LA (39-25) continues its current five-game homestand tomorrow night against the Minnesota Timberwolve<\/a>s, coming off an impressive 110-97 victory over the New York Knicks on Sunday. The Lakers never trailed in the game, leading by as many as 23 points as Luka Doncic<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a> continued to thrive without Lebron James. <\/a><\/p>\n

Doncic poured in 35 points, marking his 33rd game of reaching the 30-point mark, and grabbed eight rebounds, while Reaves tallied 25. It was Reaves’ third 20-point game in his last 15 contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the messaging to him has just been to be himself,\u201d\u00a0coach\u00a0<\/a>JJ Redick<\/a>\u00a0said after the victory over the Knicks.<\/a> \u201cAnd I think sometimes when you miss time, and circumstances are going on with the team, that you can kind of be a little passive. \u2026 We want him to be aggressive. Every time he gets the ball, we want him to be aggressive and have a mentality to touch the paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

More importantly, the Lakers turned in one of their better defensive performances. The 97 points the Knicks scored are the third fewest allowed by the Lakers,s as they were great from beyond the arc on both ends of the court. The Lakers drained 15 threes, tying for the fifth most on the season, and held the Knicks to just eight triples, which is their fifth fewest of the campaign, on 23.5% from the 3-point line.<\/p>\n

Doncic led the Lakers’ three-point barrage, though he was just 5 of 16 from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, Rui Hachimura<\/a> (3 of 8), Reaves (3 of 4), and Luke Kennar<\/a>d (3 of 7) were a combined 9 of 19 from deep.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Kirby Lee, Imagn Images<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Lakers Better Without LeBron James?<\/h3>\n

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Sunday’s win was the Lakers’ second straight and fourth in their last five. The Lakers improved to 13-7 without James, including 9-2 when Doncic and Reaves are on the court together. Without James, Doncic is averaging 35.4 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 8.2 assists in 14 games. Reaves compiled 28.3 points, 8.2 assists, and 4.7 rebounds in 15 outings without James.<\/p>\n

“Even the performance of Redick’s team improves even more when Doncic and Reaves share the court without LeBron,” John Griswold of Sports Illustrated said<\/a>. “In such a circumstance, the Lakers have a 9-2 record, accompanied by a remarkable +13.31 net rating, a statistic that measures the difference between the points a team scores and those it receives per 100 possessions.”<\/p>\n

“With Luka in the role of main generator and AR15 as an aggressive complement both in the outside shot and in penetrations,” Griswold continued. “The Angelenos have found an offensive balance that allows them to sustain positive results, apart from the absence of King James.”<\/p>\n

Speaking of James, he is questionable for the game against the Timberwolves, per Benjamin Royer of the O.C. Register<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“LeBron James, as JJ Redick said earlier, is questionable for Tuesday night\u2019s game against Minnesota,” Royer tweeted earlier this evening.<\/span><\/p>\n

It isn’t a surprise that James is listed as questionable for the game against the Timberwolves, as he didn’t practice earlier today, as ESPN’s Dave McMenamin<\/a> relayed. However, McMenamin did add that James did watch film of the Wolves with the team.\u00a0 \u00a0If James is unable to go, it will be the third straight absence due to a right hip contusion and left hip arthritis.<\/p>\n

Luke Kennard is having a historic shooting season.<\/h3>\n

Kennard is one of the best shooters in NBA history and is having a historic season from beyond the arc. Kennard, who ranks second in league history in 3-point percentage at 44.33%, averages 1.6 triples at a 50% clip in 60 contests for Atlanta and Los Angeles. If Kennard can continue to make threes at such a rate, he would become just the seventh player to knock down half of his shots from deep in a campaign.<\/p>\n

Kennard has upped his production to 10.1 points per game, shooting 24 of 47 from beyond the arc (51.1%) in 14 games with the Lakers. He has made multiple threes seven times for the Lakers, including two or more treys in each of the last six contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s developed into an elite shooter,\u201d Redick said of Kennard earlier this afternoon via X<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Could Adou Thiero Get Some Minutes Down The Stretch?<\/h3>\n

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Adou Thiero<\/a>, the No. 36 overall pick in 2025, has had a difficult rookie campaign. Thiero<\/a> missed the 2025 NBA Summer League and all of training camp as he was recovering from offseason knee surgery. The 21-year-old wing also missed time in January with an MCL sprain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While Thiero has seen action in three games with the Lakers since returning in mid-February, he has been highly efficient with the G-League<\/a> South Bay Lakers. In his four most recent games with South Bay, Thiero has averaged 16.5 points, on 26 of 35 shooting (74.2%) and 5.6 rebounds.\u00a0 He has scored in double-figures in three of the four games, and is coming off a career performance on Sunday.<\/p>\n

In 28 minutes against the Santa Cruz Warrior<\/a>s, Thiero tallied 25 points on 10 of 12 shooting, including 5 of 5 from beyond the arc. He also grabbed six boards (two offensive), doled out two assists, came up with one steal, and blocked two shots.<\/p>\n

“Thiero’s build and profile offer a lot of gushing over what can be had with him in the rotation,” Svyatoslav<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Rovenchuk of The Lake Show Life said.”The Lakers are hoping to bolster their athleticism, improve their defense, and increase their on-court activity. Having him be a non-factor from deep would do no favors.”<\/p>\n

Thiero has appeared in 18 games for the Lakers, averaging six minutes per contest. Despite Thiero’s 3-and-D potential, don’t expect to see him get much run down the stretch run of the season. The Lakers are still battling for a top-6 playoff spot.<\/p>\n

“Definitely want to get [Thiero] opportunities,” Redick said today. “Those opportunities are not there right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers have had their ups and downs since the 2026 NBA trade deadline. But recent developments have given the Lakers some hope down the stretch. JJ Redick Talks Shooting, Athletic Youngster, And Lakers Injury Updates LA (39-25) continues its current five-game homestand tomorrow night against the Minnesota Timberwolves, coming off an impressive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3146,"featured_media":180598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,26,21,62,12,3],"tags":[50155,4556,2279,38,1133],"class_list":["post-180585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-timberwolves","category-nba","category-knicks","category-news","tag-adou-thiero","tag-austin-reaves","tag-jj-redick","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic"],"modified_by":"Daniel Benjamin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180585"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180603,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180585\/revisions\/180603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}