{"id":649956,"date":"2026-03-10T02:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T02:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/649956\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T02:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T02:02:16","slug":"jj-redick-was-pleased-with-deandre-aytons-play-vs-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/649956\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Redick was pleased with Deandre Ayton\u2019s play vs. Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Being the starting center of the Lakers is always going to bring an inherent pressure with it. After embracing that pressure coming into the season, Deandre Ayton has faded into the background.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">With each subpar game, the focus on him intensifies. Recently, those games have come with more frequency for Ayton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Sunday, though, was a big test for the Lakers and one that they passed with flying colors with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverscreenandroll.com\/lakers-scores-results\/110223\/lakers-vs-knicks-recap-box-score-stats-final-austin-reaves-luka-doncic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an impressive win over the Knicks<\/a>. Many players stepped up in the victory with Ayton included among them. His box score might not be his most gaudy of the season at six points and eight rebounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">However, he was impactful defensively, fought for loose balls on both ends of the floor and generally played at a high level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cHe was great,\u201d head coach JJ Redick said. \u201cI thought the pursuit of the basketball, loose balls, going to block shots. There was a couple of times where he was outside the play, shot goes up, he goes and pursues the rebound. I thought he played really hard tonight. He was great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Effort level has waned throughout not just Ayton\u2019s time in LA but also his NBA career. It will certainly continue to wane even after the Knicks game. But that game showed how important he can still be for the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">According to NBA\u2019s matchup data, Karl-Anthony Towns shot just 1-6 from the field with Ayton as the primary defender. In fact, no player made more than one field goal on Ayton, including when he was switched onto guards like Jalen Brunson or Josh Hart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Again, the Lakers can\u2019t realistically expect Ayton to perform like this every game, no matter how much they may want that to be the case. In an ideal world, they can get this level of production from Ayton. But there\u2019s a career\u2019s worth of data for Ayton to suggest that isn\u2019t going to happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being the starting center of the Lakers is always going to bring an inherent pressure with it. After&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,771,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-649956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-lakers","11":"tag-lakers","12":"tag-lakers-news","13":"tag-lalakers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangeleslakers","18":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116202421934588953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}