Most NBA head coaches in 2026 are happy to let any centre with a working jumper fire from beyond the arc. Lakers head coach JJ Redick is not one of them. Asked after a comfortable home win over the Washington Wizards on March 31 whether his big men would start adding threes to their games, Redick gave a one-line answer that captured his entire offensive philosophy.
"Hopefully not."
He then explained why, framing the rest of the answer around the Lakers' identity as a team that is at its best when its bigs are punishing the rim rather than spacing the floor.
"It's so important for those guys, for our team, for them to put pressure on the rim. They've done it in a number of ways. Done it in transition. Jackson gets ahead of his guy early. LeBron hits him, he gets a dunk," Redick said.
The "Jackson" Redick was talking about — Jaxson Hayes — has quietly become a role-clarity success story for Los Angeles. Sideline reporter Ali Clifton noted Hayes finished a perfect 8-for-8 from the floor for 19 points, his fourth straight game in double figures. Inside the Lakers' broadcast booth, the case for keeping Hayes (and rotation big Maxi Kleber, when fit) rim-focused has become almost unanimous: every catch they take below the rim is a defender forced into rotation rather than a defender allowed to chase out to the arc.
Redick reserved his most affectionate praise of the night for veteran wing Luke Kennard, who has anchored bench rotations since being acquired earlier in the season.
"He's a pro. He's just very steady. Very consistent in execution, in effort. Obviously there's a gravity that he has off the ball — both as a spacer and as a mover. He's just been a terrific decision-maker for us, and good to see him have a couple come down for him," Redick said.
The Wizards game was also one of the cleanest defensive performances of the Lakers' second-half surge, and Redick spent several minutes inside his presser walking through how the team measures its three-point defense — a private obsession that has helped him explain to his roster why early-season shot luck did not mean the underlying defense was broken.
"There's two ways to measure expected field goal percentage and expected three-point percentage. One way is to take every shot and use league averages — and you arrive at a number. The other way is to individualise it for each shot, for each player. We do both," Redick said. "Teams have actually been underperforming against us recently after overperforming earlier in the season."
That detail matters. The early-season Lakers were giving up an opponent three-point percentage that, by Redick's framing, was always going to revert. The narrative of a "fixed" defense, he was suggesting, had as much to do with regression to the mean as it did with new schemes. The team's actual coverage discipline, he argued, has been more consistent than the public perception.
The night also featured an unrelated point of frustration. Lakers analyst Mike Trudell took a passing shot at the league's accumulated-technical rule, after Luka Doncic missed the game serving the automatic suspension that follows a sixteenth tech.
"I hate this rule by the NBA with the 16 technicals — because I want to watch Luka play basketball as a Lakers fan and as an NBA fan," Trudell said. "But he got to rest tonight."
Doncic's enforced night off, Hayes' sixth straight efficient outing, Kennard's quiet professionalism — and a head coach who refuses to weaponise his bigs into shooters — added up to one of the cleanest Lakers wins of the regular season. Redick's "hopefully not" might end up being the most quoted two words from the press conference. It is also the simplest summary of how Los Angeles, finally, found an offensive identity that did not require the team's two MVP-class stars to do everything.
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*Originally published on [NBA News Global](https://nbanews.global/article/jj-redick-lakers-bigs-attack-rim-kennard-hayes-three-point-defense-march-2026). Visit for full coverage.*