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Lakers head coach JJ Redick made it clear that what happened on Sunday night won’t occur again.
And that there are consequences, especially for end-of-bench players, for not being ready to play in an NBA game when their number is called.
The Lakers coach thought his team’s lead was safe when he subbed out most of his main rotation players – Austin Reaves, Walker Kessler and Matisse Thybulle – with the Lakers leading by 14 points (123-109) with 1:43 left of their home game against the Raptors.
Luka Dončić, who had already scored 41 points by that point, had been out of the game for 45 seconds, with the Lakers and Redick believing the end-of-bench players would put the finishing touches on securing the victory.
Even though the Lakers did eventually beat the Raptors, it didn’t come to fruition as Redick and the team hoped, with the end-of-bench players nearly blowing a double-digit lead in less than a minute.
“I won’t make that mistake again,” Redick said. “I’ll leave the guys in. You gotta play to the final buzzer, and if guys are not ready to play, then I just won’t put them in.”
After one of the lone rotation players, Quentin Grimes, split a pair of free throws to put the Lakers up 124-109 with 1:24 left, Jamison Battle hit a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer to cut the Raptors’ deficit to 12.
JJ Redick on the Lakers’ lead being cut from 15 points to 5 in 40 seconds after LAL subbed its main rotation players out against the Raptors, leading to JJ subbing them back in to close the game: “We just didn’t do a good job of taking care of the ball in that situation. So I… pic.twitter.com/pUhIHhvMLp
— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) November 2, 2026
A failed lob attempt from Grimes to Jarred Vanderbilt that resulted in a turnover turned into another Battle catch-and-shoot 3 in transition that quickly cut the Lakers’ lead to nine points.
And a failed inbounds pass by Bronny James led to the Lakers’ lead dropping down to seven after Battle hit a floater on the Raptors’ ensuing possession, making it eight straight points in less than 20 seconds of game time for the 2024 undrafted forward out of Ohio State.
Redick had seen enough by the time Jaden Bradley converted an and-1 layup to trim the Raptors’ deficit to six points with 44 seconds left (and five points after making the free throw) after the Lakers led by 15 points just 40 seconds prior.
Dončić, Reaves, Kessler and Thybulle all subbed back in for James, Vanderbilt, Jaden Hardy and Cameron Carr (who was making his NBA debut) before Bradley shot his free throw.
The Lakers did just enough to secure the win with its main players back in the game, but it wasn’t pretty.
“A lot of times as a player when you kind of get something like that in that point, you kind of look at it as garbage minutes but the reality is, every time you step on the court, you got to treat it like it’s minutes to play the game,” Kessler said.
“Because my rookie and sophomore year, I got put in the garbage minutes and you got to play to the whistle because the reality is you’re only going to get your shot. And I’m not saying that those guys aren’t competitors ‘cause a lot of them are, but they got to be a lot more more fundamental, for sure.”
