There was a flashy Lakers score — 127-113 — and there was a Crypto.com Arena scoreline worth paying attention to that said nothing about the final margin: Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, Cleveland's two best players, combined for 16 points.
In his postgame press conference, Lakers head coach JJ Redick walked reporters through exactly how that happened, describing a mid-first-half adjustment that flipped the coverages on the Cavaliers' preferred pick-and-roll actions.
"Yeah, we just went to 15," Redick said. "Did a good job once those switches were made of being in our shifts, having a low man. Allen hit some shots early before we went to that against DA, and then he scored a couple off those."
The language was dry, but the message was not. For the first chunk of the game, Jarrett Allen got clean rolls and easy looks against the Lakers' drop coverage. Redick's staff read the problem quickly and switched everything. The result was Cleveland's two stars stripped of the space they needed. Mitchell and Mobley, a combined 50-plus scoring average on most nights, put up 16.
Redick said the group's defensive mindset has shifted all the way down to the first-possession mentality, something that contrasted sharply with the Lakers teams of November and December.
Asked to compare this group to the early-season version, one analyst on the broadcast backed up Redick's point directly. "What's impressed me the most over a period of time as we've watched the Lakers over the last several months — December, January — is they would build these deficits and then they would have to spend a lot of energy trying to come back. That's not this team."
The Lakers' 15-2 March, a defensive rating that has climbed from bottom-10 to elite, and wins over Cleveland, Houston, the Knicks, Minnesota and Denver in the same month have made this stretch the most compelling of Redick's first year as head coach.
He refused, however, to spend the press conference celebrating.
Asked about the next level of the playoff bracket, Redick chose to spotlight the Oklahoma City Thunder without being prompted to.
"I do know they're great on both sides of the ball," Redick said. "They're going to make you work for things defensively because of how physical they are. And then they just do a great job of driving. I mean, you really have to do your work early. They're just really good at what they do, and they've been doing that now for five years. They know all the nuances. They know all the tricks. They all know the timing of everything. They're just a tough team to guard."
That last line carried a note of frustration that most viewers recognised. The Lakers had already lost one of their regular-season meetings with Oklahoma City in unconvincing fashion, and the calendar said another date with Mark Daigneault's team was coming fast.
For one night, though, the win and the tape were enough. Redick's switch call, his defensive shifts, and the 16 combined points allowed to Mitchell and Mobley were the evidence a Lakers team that used to live behind the eight-ball can now pre-empt it.
"Allen hit some shots early," Redick said. Then the Lakers went to 15, and everything changed.
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*Originally published on [NBA News Global](https://nbanews.global/article/jj-redick-lakers-switching-defense-cavaliers-127-113-thunder-respect-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
