JJ Redick simply made the kind of historical past no NBA coach needs to make

With the Lakers trailing 2-1 of their sequence in opposition to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and dealing with a (most likely insurmountable) 3-1 deficit within the first spherical of the NBA Playoffs, head coach JJ Redick decided: He was both going to sink or swim with the fellows who received him up to now.

That’s actually the one justification for why Redick performed starters LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura your complete last 24 minutes of sport time, whereas additionally benching nominal beginning heart Jaxson Hayes for Dorian Finney-Smith (who additionally performed your complete second half).

If that appeared like a daring — and probably unprecedented — determination to anybody watching the sport, it seems that’s as a result of it was. As NBA stats guru Keerthika Uthayakumar identified after the Lakers’ 116-113 Sport 4 loss, Redick is the primary coach to ever do that within the playoffs for the reason that NBA began play-by-play monitoring:

The Lakers’ field rating is fairly wild because of this, with Luka (coming off a abdomen flu that noticed him in mattress your complete earlier day!) and LeBron ending with 46 minutes apiece, whereas Hachimura and Finney-Smith performed 41 every, and Reaves ended the sport with 35. Hayes, who’s unhealthy at basketball however nonetheless tall sufficient to stay the Lakers’ ostensible beginning heart, completed with one four-minute shift, and no Laker outdoors of the second-half starters performed greater than 13 minutes.

With teaching strategic choices, the foundations for our collective reminiscences are easy: When you do one thing that’s by no means been performed earlier than and win, you’re a pioneering genius. When you do it and lose, nonetheless, you received’t be second-guessed for eternity… however that’s simply because we’ve already determined you’re an fool who ought to have stolen a couple of extra minutes for Gabe Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt and even Hayes in order that the Lakers’ predominant guys didn’t brief rim seemingly each shot they took within the last 5 minutes of sport time.

That final bit is hyperbolic, as Redick is clearly a sensible man who has principally performed properly with a wonky roster after the seismic and surprising commerce for Luka Doncic. But it surely’s additionally secure to say he most likely didn’t, as a rookie coach, need to go down as the primary bench chief to ever do this in a sport his group misplaced by one basket to fall down 3-1 within the sequence as a substitute of tied at 2-2.

It’s additionally, as he informed reporters after the sport, not one thing he deliberate going into the sport, however a name he made at halftime and confirmed to stated gamers going into the fourth quarter:

Finally, their effort was in useless, although, as was Redick’s daring strategic name, that means that it’s most likely unlikely one other coach will attempt it once more anytime soo-… oh, wait, Tom Thibodeau is certainly attempting this subsequent sport now that he is aware of it’s each bodily doable and authorized, huh?

Properly, in that case, perhaps Redick can console himself with the data that no less than he will not be alone on this membership for lengthy.