{"id":715592,"date":"2026-04-22T04:21:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T04:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/715592\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T04:21:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T04:21:28","slug":"jj-redick-reacts-to-kevin-durant-returning-to-face-lakers-for-game-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/715592\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Redick reacts to Kevin Durant returning to face Lakers for Game 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kevin Durant (knee) will strengthen the Rockets for Game 2 upon his return in the first-round series against the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Lakers find themselves facing a much more determined Houston Rockets team ahead of Tuesday&#8217;s Game 2 following the big news around Kevin Durant.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/players\/6138-kevin-durant.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin  Durant<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/leagues\/59-nba.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/image-126312-any150x150.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Kevin  Durant\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/players\/6138-kevin-durant.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-396117-crop100x150.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Kevin  Durant\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tMIN:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t36.41<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tPTS:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t25.97 (61.02%)<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tREB:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t5.45<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tAS:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t4.77<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tST:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.81<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tBL:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.91<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tTO:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t3.15<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGM:<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t78<\/p>\n<p>As reported, the superstar forward has been <a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/news-245624-kevin-durant-final-game-2-status-vs-lakers-revealed.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cleared to play<\/a> after missing the Rockets&#8217; Saturday Game 1 due to a knee tendon bruise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In his pregame speech ahead of the Lakers&#8217; Game 2 home play, Redick acknowledged the challenge that awaits them with Durant back on the court for Houston.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He\u2019s the fifth leading scorer of all time and he\u2019s done it at a high level for so long. He\u2019s one of the greatest players ever, one of the most gifted scorers that I think we\u2019ve ever seen and really just a fantastic basketball player. If he shoots, you feel like it\u2019s going in every time. So we\u2019ve got to do a good job with all our coverages with him,&#8221; he told reporters about Durant.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s an energy and an edge that you guys sort of have to play with to be competitive in this series and frankly on most nights.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/plus?utm_source=basketnews_com&amp;utm_medium=bn_plus&amp;utm_id=UA-259273-31&amp;utm_campaign=banners_free_content_for_not_members_bottom_4\" class=\"banners_paid_content_info_block_white banners-paid-content-info-block-white\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                                                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"bn-plus-img img-fluid\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/bn-plus.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                            Like what we are doing? Support us by becoming BN+ member.<\/p>\n<p>                                                            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                                If you like our content, please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=basketnews.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a> and add us as your preferred source. It helps us a lot, and we are committed to delivering you the very latest basketball news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant (knee) will strengthen the Rockets for Game 2 upon his return in the first-round series against&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715593,"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-715592","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":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116446448009820636","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715592","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=715592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}