![\"Lakers](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2268777284-e1775760229833.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Lakers head coach JJ Redick <\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> secured a top-four seed in the mighty Western Conference with a 101-73 win over the Phoenix Suns<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n That\u2019s quite an accomplishment for a team ravaged by injuries all year, with Luka Doncic (17), Austin Reaves (30), LeBron James<\/a> (32) and Marcus Smart<\/a> (19) all missing a significant amount of games throughout the season. Due to the injuries, Lakers head coach JJ Redick<\/a> used his 25th different starting unit<\/a> of the season on Friday.<\/p>\n With the Lakers guaranteeing themselves home-court advantage<\/a> in the first round of the playoffs, Redick used the opportunity to call out critics.<\/p>\n \u201cI know none of you guys had us in the top four to start the season,\u201d Redick said.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just the reality. Most people had us as a play-in team, or even worse.\u201d<\/p>\n JJ Redick CALLS OUT the media an pundits who had the Lakers in the play-in or missing the playoffs entirely in the pre-season.<\/p>\n Redick has commanded the Lakers to 52+ wins (most since \u201820) while having his Big 3 all miss significant time <\/p>\n PROPS TO JJ \ud83d\udc4f <\/p>\n Were Lakers Overlooked?<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had to manage the expectations of the Lakers and also the negativity that just naturally surrounds every loss,\u201d Redick continued.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think our group has managed that well.\u201d<\/p>\n Further to Redick\u2019s point, several analysts viewed the Lakers as a middling team that would struggle to secure a guaranteed playoff berth. While an ESPN analytics-based simulation predicted the Lakers would finish with a 36-46 record<\/a> and miss the playoffs, CBS Sports\u2019 Colin Ward-Henninger<\/a> had the Lakers ranked 11th in his list of title contenders, shockingly behind teams such as the Orlando Magic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0LA Clippers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Also worth noting is that sportsbooks such as\u00a0BetMGM<\/a> set the Lakers\u2019 over\/under win totals at 46.5, behind teams such as the Atlanta Hawks<\/a>, Magic and Clippers.<\/p>\n Contrary to those projections, the Lakers are primed to finish with a 53-29 record<\/a> after their inevitable win against the lottery-bound Utah Jazz<\/a> in Sunday\u2019s season finale.<\/p>\n JJ Redick Proud of Lakers<\/p>\n Redick expressed how proud he is of his team for securing home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs \u2014 despite the sea of injuries and chemistry issues they faced throughout the year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m extremely proud of our team, our players, and our coaches for dealing with the entire NBA<\/a> season,\u201d Redick stressed.<\/p>\n \u201c..I think for maybe one or two teams a year, they don\u2019t have a lot of ups and downs, and their rollercoaster is fairly flat, but for almost every team in the NBA, your ability to bounce back from failure is the key to the aggregation of what your season is.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026To clinch home court and to win 52 games, possibly 53 games, deal with the amount of adversity we had. \u2026 It\u2019s a credit to our players. It\u2019s a credit to our staff for just persevering and just keeping our head down and doing the work.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lakers will secure the third seed on Sunday if they can beat the Utah Jazz and the Denver Nuggets<\/a> lose to the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>. In such a scenario, the Lakers will face the Timberwolves<\/a> in the first round of the playoffs instead of the Rockets<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSai Mohan<\/a> covers the NBA for Heavy.com. Based in Portugal, Sai is a seasoned sports writer with nearly two decades of publishing experience, including bylines at Yardbarker, FanSided’s Hoops Habit, International Business Times, Hindustan Times and more. More about Sai Mohan<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Lakers\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Lakers head coach JJ Redick The Los Angeles Lakers secured a top-four seed in the mighty Western…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-708139","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-lalakers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleslakers","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708139","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=708139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}