After spending the better part of the last three weeks in Los Angeles, the Lakers are set for a short but intense road trip out east.

Not only is the team making the flight across the country, but they’ll be playing three games in four nights, starting with a back-to-back in Toronto and Boston before wrapping up in Philadelphia. A three-game-in-four-night stretch is always daunting, but head coach JJ Redick didn’t seem too pleased that this one is coming after the purple and gold fly cross country.

“In terms of an East Coast trip – I know there’s a couple of teams that have stuff like this in terms of the Eastern Conference going west and West going east – I’ve been part of the NBA 19 years,” Redick said after Sunday’s win over the Pelicans. “I don’t ever remember a California-based team going to the far east of the Eastern Conference for three games to play three and four nights. That’s an incredible challenge…It’s going to be a tough stretch and we’re going to have to manage a lot of different stuff coming up.”

This will be a mental challenge for the Lakers as much as it will be physical. Not only does the team need to bounce back from the disappointing effort against the Suns, but they’ll have to match up with some tough teams, even if they are Eastern Conference opponents.

The Raptors are one of the surprise teams of the season and have been near the top of the conference all season. The Celtics are always going to be a tough game for obvious reasons and the Sixers have a young, energetic team that plays hard, a lot of qualities for teams that give the Lakers fits.

“It’ll test us,” Austin Reaves said. “It’s a tough trip, but, at the same time, everybody goes through it. We’ll go put our hard hat on and compete to win those games.”

This road trip offers them a chance at redemption and to further prove themselves and learn from those previous mistakes.

“Our last road trip where we had OKC, Atlanta, those losses,” Deandre Ayton said, “it’s a good road trip to redeem ourselves a little bit. We’re playing against some tough teams that are really good and I just think those games in those amount of days will really test our stamina and our mental stamina as well.”

The added test of needing to bounce back from Monday’s embarrassing defeat adds another element to the upcoming stretch as well. What’s clear is that we’ll learn a lot about these Lakers in the coming week.