{"id":716685,"date":"2026-04-23T18:52:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716685\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:52:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:52:31","slug":"jj-reddick-has-coached-circles-around-ime-udoka-in-the-lakers-rockets-playoff-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716685\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Reddick has ‘coached circles’ around Ime Udoka in the Lakers-Rockets playoff series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O\u2019Connor and NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh highlight the many ways that coaching has failed the Rockets in their playoff series against the Lakers<\/a>. Check out the full conversation on \u201cThe Kevin O\u2019Connor Show\u201d and subscribe on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, YouTube<\/a> or wherever you listen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Video Transcript<\/p>\n

I just feel like JJ has coached circles around Ime Udoka in this series, and the Lakers have executed at a simply higher level as well.<\/p>\n

But I, I just Look, I’ve been critical of Ime, Tom.<\/p>\n

I mean, the Rockets ended the season with some wins.<\/p>\n

Th- they’ll seem very fake when you’re down 2-0 against the Lakers without Luka and Austin Reaves.<\/p>\n

Just, just hard to fathom.<\/p>\n

But it’s really not that hard to fathom when you consider Ime Udoka’s just not that good of a coach, and he has no idea how to coach offense.<\/p>\n

How is it possible that Ime Udoka does not have a solve for KD getting doubled?<\/p>\n

It, it looks like it’s the first time that that’s happened.<\/p>\n

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It’s simple.<\/p>\n

It, it– And, and, like, Reed Shepard is a, is, is, is an antidote to those double teams because he’s an excellent three-point shooter and a guy who can play make for others, and he was glued to the bench.<\/p>\n

Free Reed, okay?<\/p>\n

We need, we need more Reed Shepard, not less.<\/p>\n

When they can’t score above 100 points, this is an absolute opportunity for them- And real quick on that, Tom.<\/p>\n

I- Ime, Ime fa- at fault there, but also KD.<\/p>\n

There’s the play in the first half where Reed Shepard is ki- like, a, a three-on-two on the break, and Reed Shepard took a three instead of dribbling into the paint to try to draw a foul or get a layup at the rim.<\/p>\n

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And, and KD kinda snapped at him after he took ma- took and missed the three-pointer.<\/p>\n

So it’s like, also, KD, hey, you get a guy who makes 45% of his threes, and you need his spacing.<\/p>\n

Maybe support that guy a- and be more of a leader.<\/p>\n

So I think on KD, too, with the Reed Shepard stuff.<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

it’s clear that these guys don’t play for each other.<\/p>\n

they I don’t think they like each other in the sense of, like, when you look at the, what happened with Alperen engn and, and KD at, at the All-Star break.<\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

and, and the burner accounts, where it just seems like everything around this team feels just like it, it stinks.<\/p>\n

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It stinks.<\/p>\n

And Ime Udoka, against this short-handed Lakers team, they should be up 2-0 in this series.<\/p>\n

They absolutely should be.<\/p>\n

LeBron James has gone old school, just backing Amen Thompson down in the paint, Tari Eason, and just controlling everything offensively.<\/p>\n

And they haven’t figured out a counter.<\/p>\n

They can’t double.<\/p>\n

They’re not rotating.<\/p>\n

This is LeBron James right now, and we did the big number on this yesterday, LeBron has 16 post-ups in this series so far, which is more than any other team in the NBA.<\/p>\n

You combine Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, and, and Alperen engn.<\/p>\n

He has more post-ups than any of those guys combined.<\/p>\n

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he has more post-ups than the, than four NBA teams combined in this postseason.<\/p>\n

And it’s like Ime has no counter.<\/p>\n

He’s got no way to, to, respond to an old-school basketball trick that LeBron’s like, “Yeah, I’m absolutely gonna back down this guy and control the defense in ways that they don’t know how to respond.”<\/p>\n

And yet on the other side, KD is getting doubled every time down the floor, and it looks like it’s the first time he’s played basketball.<\/p>\n

And that’s the difference here is that LeBron, at this age, has been able to control everything like he is a, a, a master chess player.<\/p>\n

And everything that I see on the other side is that the Houston Rockets are playing checkers<\/p>\n

Close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O\u2019Connor and NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh highlight the many ways that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,2884,300,6,1165,211,1101,999],"class_list":["post-716685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-kevin-oconnor","tag-lakers","tag-nba","tag-playoff-series","tag-rockets","tag-the-rockets","tag-tom-haberstroh"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116455535031205898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716685","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=716685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}