On January 6th, Beijing time, the Los Angeles Lakers narrowly missed victory, chasing points to the end but ultimately lost to the Rockets. After the game, Redick directly expressed his anger, making it clear that everyone on the Lakers should be criticized except for James.
Facing the Rockets, the Lakers launched a super comeback after trailing by as many as 22 points, eventually closing the gap to just 4 points, but they still lost. The Rockets won largely due to their rebounding advantage, with a difference of 10 rebounds between the two teams, mainly in offensive rebounds where the Rockets grabbed 18. After the game, Redick was furious and directly criticized the entire team, saying, "We can't even grab defensive rebounds."
How could the Lakers not lose when they allowed the Rockets to grab 18 offensive rebounds? This is equivalent to giving the Rockets 18 more scoring opportunities. In fact, the Lakers had a higher shooting percentage than the Rockets, but the Rockets took 21 more shots, aggressively grabbing rebounds and immediately attacking, continuously shooting and grabbing rebounds. It was this tactic that overwhelmed the Lakers.
However, who exactly was Redick criticizing when he said the team couldn't grab defensive rebounds? Obviously, he was referring to the other nine Lakers players besides James. There is a very direct statistic: in this game, the Lakers had 29 defensive rebounds, of which James grabbed 12 alone. He had a total of 13 rebounds, 12 of which were defensive rebounds. Therefore, when Redick said there was a problem with our defensive rebound protection, he definitely wasn't talking about LeBron. He protected so many defensive rebounds by himself, so what's the problem?
It's the other Lakers players, like Hachimura who had zero defensive rebounds for the whole game, and Reeves who also had zero rebounds. Players like Smith and Knick, who are around two meters tall, only managed to grab one defensive rebound in the entire game. How could they not lose with such performance? Players like Milton couldn't even grab a rebound when they came on the court; these are the others that Redick criticized.
Clearly, in terms of rebounding, LeBron protected 13 rebounds and grabbed 12 defensive rebounds, which is not a problem and he has already done his best. Players like Anthony Davis have height but don't grab rebounds; is this not a problem? It can only be said that Davis is indeed too soft, despite having a height of 2.11 meters, he grabs fewer rebounds, especially defensive rebounds, than James. It's unclear what he's thinking.
Additionally, although the Lakers seem to have three big frontcourt players in their lineup, in reality, there aren't many who can grab rebounds. Many players on this team only think about offense and never consider defense or rebounds. Hachimura and Reeves are such players, only concerned with making their offensive statistics look good, not paying attention to defense or rebounds. Is this problem not serious?
A team cannot consist solely of selfish players; it needs several blue-collar players to do the dirty work. The Lakers are clearly lacking such people. It can only be said that the loss in this game is not unjust for the Lakers, and each of their players should seriously reflect on themselves.