Lakers buying JJ Redick’s emphasis on possessions advantage – Orange County Register

LOS ANGELES — There wasn’t a shortage of eye-catching storylines coming out of the Lakers’ 110-103 season-opening win Tuesday at Crypto.com Arena.

LeBron James and Bronny James became the first father-son duo to play in the NBA at the same time, and they did it as teammates.

JJ Redick got his first official victory as the team’s coach. Anthony Davis dominated both ends of the floor, reminding a national audience of his place among the NBA’s elites. The Lakers got their first season-opening victory since 2016.

But the victory over Minnesota wouldn’t have happened without the Lakers winning the possession battle – which wasn’t common last season.

“The very first thing I said to our team – we have to be better at the possession battle, here’s how,” Redick recalled. “Minnesota, the least amount of turnovers they forced last year was eight and we came in with seven. Obviously, the offensive rebounds was a huge part. Got to the free-throw line. AD did a great job of that. We put ourselves in a position to win a basketball game because of that. We can offset bad shooting nights from 3 if we have more possessions.”

Despite having a subpar shooting game (44.2% from the field, 5 for 30 from 3-point range), the Lakers led for most of the game, including the final 34 minutes, because they won in the less glamorous but important details – especially in the first half.

They finished with three more offensive rebounds (15-12) and nine fewer turnovers (7-16) than the Timberwolves, helping give them an advantage in field-goal attempts (95-85) while they took only two fewer free throws than Minnesota (27-25).

The Lakers’ edge in these areas was more significant in the first half: five more offensive rebounds (10-5), eight fewer turnovers (11-3), 14 more field-goal attempts (53-39) and two more attempted free throws (9-7).

Winning around the margins led to the Lakers having a game-high 19-point lead in the second and a 13-point lead at halftime.

So when the Timberwolves picked up their physicality in the second half while trying to cut into the deficit, the Lakers were playing from ahead, a margin of error provided by doing the little things early.

“The game plan, the schemes that he had on both ends of the floor, he trusts us,” Davis said. “We trust him, as far as what he teaches us, what he wants us to do on the floor on both ends and it’s our job to go execute it. We were very prepared. We executed the game plan to a T.

“I’m not going to tell you the game plan because I know Minnesota [will] probably be watching this and figure out how to try to beat us next time. But our game plan was elite and we executed it.”

The offensive rebounding especially has been an emphasis from Day One compared to last season when the Lakers ranked last in offensive rebounds per game (8.2) and second-chance points (10.5), and 29th in offensive rebounding percentage (24.4%).

Their opponents averaged nearly 4½ points more second-chance points than them last season – an issue Redick hopes to fix.

Corner crashing – which often happens from the offensive player in the weakside corner as their defender is pulled away from them in a defensive rotation or has their attention occupied by what’s happening on the strongside – has been an emphasis from Redick and his staff.

So far, the Lakers have benefited. And they did so without sacrificing their transition defense.