JJ Redick still believes in Jaxson Hayes, but does not exclude him

The weakness of the Los Angeles Lakers on the front square is known as Jaxson Hayes is the only true center of the team. But he has not yet achieved any major influence in this playoff series and, on average, preferred to have less than nine minutes per game with head coach JJ Redick, who have smaller most of the time.

After the Lakers are in the 3-series defeat after the 2-1 loss on Friday evening after the Friday evening, some wonder whether the Lakers could give up the Hayes minutes overall and become small from the start. And Redick has not excluded this possibility.

He made it clear that the Lakers still believe in Hayes and what he can bring to this team, but Redick will look at everything to help the Lakers Jovan Buhha from the athlete:

JJ Redick when he considered that he is considering the starting center Jaxson Hayes: “We will look at everything, but we still believe in Jaxson.”

Hayes cracked double -digit minutes in the series.

– Jovan Buhha (@jovanbuha) April 26, 2025

There is no doubt that Hayes had some strong performances throughout the regular season and was really brought to the starting line -up after the Luka Doncic trade. But as a player he is limited and Redick prefers the smaller line-up and replaces Hayes by Dorian Finney-Smith to spread Minnesota’s defense.

There is still a certain value to have Hayes out there, as Timberwolves Wing Jaden McDaniels noted, especially against such a physical team. But that just doesn’t seem to be a series in which Hayes can really influence things and the Lakers may be more suitable, only without real big ones.

The Lakers will surely try to address the middle position in the off-season, but that does nothing that changes things for this series, and Redick has to make a decision whether Hayes continues to place there or hugged the smaller line-up and Finney-Smith, Vanderbilt and Rui Hachimura trusted in the middle.

JJ Redick critically against Lakers’ sales in game 3 loss

Regardless of whether Jaxson Hayes plays big minutes or not, the Lakers have to do one thing if they plan to get back into this series, it is better to take care of the ball. The Lakers had 16 sales in their loss in game 3 and JJ Redick criticized his team because they stick to the ball.

The Lakers trainer owed the Timberwolves to force some of these Lakers lack of success, but it was also of the opinion that many of their sales with LA were easy to do too much. Redick added that he had the feeling that the Lakers look good overall, but the sales were just too much to overcome them.

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