JJ Redick credited Lakers bench against Toronto

JJ Redick credited Lakers bench against Toronto https://t.co/XY7KviZXp9 via @LakersSBN

— LakerTom (@LakerTom) November 12, 2024

Production from the Lakers’ bench players has been hard to come by, but against the Raptors, they stepped up in a big way.

Now 5-0 at home, Redick shared his thoughts on how his bench performed versus the Raptors.

“The bench itself tonight, you think about, we were flat in the first half, D’Lo gave us a lift,” Redick said postgame. “We executed another 3-for-2 at the end of the first half to sort of get some momentum and then Gabe, Dalton, Jaxson off the bench in the second half were, were great.”

It’s no surprise that Russell’s benching and Cam Reddish taking his place with the starters have given reserve scoring a shot in the arm.

Since making the move after an abysmal road trip, the Lakers bench has produced 36 points per game. Russell is back to his standard of play, scoring 16.5 points a night compared to the 12 he was averaging as a starter.

These early returns on Redick’s gutsy move are encouraging. Now, this is a small sample size, but everything is given that there have only been ten games.

Russell may have led the bench, but he wasn’t the only one playing well. Dalton Knecht had one of his better games, going 2-4 from the field and Gabe Vincent made an impact.

If the bench can continue replicating this success, it would bring the Lakers to the middle of the pack in bench production. That kind of improvement is substantial and the type of gains that can be made to raise this team’s ceiling.

The Lakers don’t need to be elite in everything. They just need to excel in their strengths, like points in the paint and not be league-worst in their weaknesses, like bench scoring and transition defense.

The defense has a long way to go, but perhaps the bench production is here to stay if Russell can lead this unit and Reddish is a good enough defender to make a dip in the offense from the starters worth it.