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\u201cAnd for him to do it again and answer the bell again, it\u2019s really — it\u2019s baffling in some ways,\u201d Redick continued.<\/p>\n
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Los Angeles raced out to a 3-0 lead in the series before losing two games to force Game 6 in Houston against a Rockets team that was missing Kevin Durant for five of six games.<\/p>\n
The Lakers played the entire series without Doncic, but Reaves returned for the last two games to help them advance.<\/p>\n
There was a chance their series with the Thunder would have started Sunday. But Game 1 was pushed back until Tuesday night when the Raptors beat the Cavaliers 112-110 in overtime thanks to RJ Barrett\u2019s 3-pointer in the final seconds to force Game 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to Toronto,\u201d James said. \u201cThank you, RJ Barrett. Appreciate it. Haven\u2019t seen a shot in Toronto like that since Kawhi (Leonard).\u201d<\/p>\n
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The 41-year-old James was thrilled to get a couple of extra days to rest and recover after averaging 38.5 minutes a game for his injury-plagued team in this series.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeck yeah,\u201d he said. \u201cI can go on the golf course now. That\u2019s what I\u2019m thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019d start delving into preparation for the Thunder by Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the defending champion,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s a tall task.\u201d<\/p>\n
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And the Thunder will be plenty rested after finishing their sweep of Phoenix on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Redick credited the leadership of not only James but fellow veteran Marcus Smart for helping steady his team after the injuries to Doncic and Reaves, who combined to average more than 56 points in the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us to be written off a few weeks ago and to win a playoff series is a big deal,\u201d Redick said. \u201cAnd it just speaks to the character of our team and the leaders of our team that they didn\u2019t let go of the rope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smart, who is in his first season with the Lakers, is so proud of the Lakers for fighting through the injuries to win this series. And he thinks that togetherness will help them as they continue their postseason run.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt means everything,\u201d he said. \u201cIt shows our resilience and it shows the belief that we have our next man up\u2026 and it just shows that no matter how depleted we are, we\u2019re always going to go out there and compete and give it everything we got.\u201d<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a>\n<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers center Jaxson Hayes (11) celebrates during the second half of Game 6 of a first-round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,30097,63,3897,200163,7216,311944,7896,481,11473,9034,590,146002,145996,145999,288646,269751,62604,85,3920],"class_list":["post-644871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-austin-reaves","tag-australia","tag-denver","tag-j-j-redick","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lakers-playoffs-lebron","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-luka-doncic","tag-marcus-smart","tag-nba","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-product-40807-ap-oklahoma-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-r-j-barrett","tag-sports","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}