After going undefeated in their six-game home stand, the Lakers were hoping to continue their dominance on the road as they faced the Celtics tonight. But the visit to TD Garden turned into a nightmare for LeBron James and Co. as they got decimated by the home team and lost by ten points. Adding to their concerns, LBJ suffered a scary injury midgame that could rule him out for a significant period going forward. And JJ Redick has already started working on a contingency plan.

Well, LeBron left the game after logging in 34 minutes due to a sudden left groin injury. While the severity of the injury remains unknown, veteran insider Dave McMenamin reported, “One source said the initial thought is that it will sideline James for a matter of weeks, not a matter of days.” Even Dr. Rajpal Brar confirmed that a Grade 1 strain could rule him out for 1-2 weeks, and anything more serious could sideline King James for over three weeks.

Interviewers asked JJ how he plans to maintain the Lakers’ momentum, given the challenge of playing without him for a few weeks. He replied, “I think we just have to continue to play hard and play defense.” Sure enough, Redick’s squad has been dominant on defense since acquiring Luka Doncic. And he wants them to maintain this mindset even without LeBron.

Even though the Lakers lost tonight, the head coach was satisfied with his team’s defensive effort, “Frankly, I thought we defended well tonight. Missing Jaxson and not being able to sort of have him roam off Holiday, I think hurt a little bit with the rim protection. But we forced them into a lot of off the dribble jumpers after the first quarter. We wanted to limit their threes – they shot 38 threes. They average 48… We executed well defensively on a lot of things.” Had Jaxson Hayes been available tonight and LeBron hadn’t gotten injured, the outcome could have been a lot different. That’s what Redick is aiming for going forward.

JJ Redick claims “Brain Fog” led to the Lakers’ “Out of Character” loss against Celtics

Apart from revealing his contingency plan in case LeBron misses some time, Redick also highlighted where his team went wrong in tonight’s game, “Didn’t like our general just pace and a lot of people think pace is playing fast and up and down. But you gotta have some thrust and we didn’t have any thrust in the half court.”

Well, the game was close when the first half ended as the Lakers trailed by only four points. But the situation got out of hand when the Celtics outscored them 29-13 in the third quarter, leaving JJ with no chance for a comeback.

He continued with the stern message to the locker room, “We weren’t generating enough force to put any pressure on the rim and to get better looks.”

Moreover, the head coach claimed that the road trip after a long time might have played a part in the Lakers’ terrible outing, “Sort of an East Coast trip. Some brain fog execution wise for us. It was a little out of character for us and I think that contributed as well in that third quarter where just we would call a play and we wouldn’t actually run the play… It was just out of character and that just got us stagnated.”

Hopefully, the team will come more prepared on Monday as they face the Nets in Brooklyn. Do you think the Lakers can hold on to the Top three seed despite LBJ’s injury?