JJ Redick on Deandre Ayton's passive sequence in Game 3
· Yahoo Sports
Los Angeles Lakers fans could barely stand to watch one sequence early in the fourth quarter of Game 3 versus the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday. During this sequence, center Deandre Ayton passively played defense and boxed out, allowing the Thunder to grab back-to-back offensive rebounds and get a layup by Ajay Mitchell.
Ayton was substituted out of the game right afterward, and he never came back into the game for the rest of the evening. It seemed to sum up how much Lakers fans have been disappointed in Ayton for good chunks of this season.
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But after the Lakers' 131-108 loss on Saturday, coach JJ Redick took the high road when asked about Ayton. He called the big man "special" and talked about how well Ayton played in the previous series against the Houston Rockets.
"I’ve been around DA for a season now," Redick said "I know how special he is for our group to succeed. And I told him this morning, I said to him in the Houston series at one point he was the big part of the reason we were winning the series. He was a big part of the reason we won the series. I believe in him and he’s going to help us win tomorrow."
Against the Rockets, Ayton averaged 11.8 points and 10.8 rebounds a game, and he had a total of 43 boards in the last three games of the series. He played consistently physical low-post defense against All-Star center Alperen Sengun, and while Sengun often got his normal allotment of points, he had to work hard for every basket he scored.
Los Angeles may not need a lot of points from Ayton, but it will need plenty of inspired defense and rebounding from him if it is to stay alive versus the defending NBA champions for at least one more contest. Game 4 will take place at Crypto.com Arena on Monday.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: JJ Redick on Deandre Ayton's passive sequence in Game 3