MEMPHIS – Following the Grizzlies’ 131-114 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, Memphis’ Desmond Bane crashed during teammate Scotty Pippen Jr.’s on-court interview. to praise him for stealing the ball from LeBron James as Pippen closed out the game. game out at one point after Ja Morant retired with a right hamstring injury.

“See how he took that ball from that old man over there?” Bane said as he grabbed Pippen by the shoulders.

In the losing locker room, Lakers coach JJ Redick used that “old man” as an example of how the rest of LA’s roster should play.

“I think LeBron was fantastic tonight,” Redick said after James scored a season-high 39 points on 15-for-24 shooting with the Lakers missing two starters: Anthony Davis (left heel contusion) and Rui Hachimura (illness) . “The biggest thing that stood out. …He played hard. Almost 40 years old and played the hardest on our team. It says a lot about him.”

And it said a lot about the rest of this LA team that ended its five-game road trip with yet another loss, leaving it 1-4 overall and falling to 4-4 on the season.

During Redick’s postgame remarks, the first-year coach was asked how he would address his team’s perceived lack of effort.

“I just did,” Redick said, placing the microphone on the table in front of him to end the press conference.

As Redick left the room, he shouted back to reporters, “First thing I said to them.”

Redick started to get the message across with the way he divvied up playing time.

He handed just six minutes to D’Angelo Russell in the second half — and a season-low 22 minutes overall — as the coach shuffled his rotations in an attempt to find a spark.

“Just the level of competition, attention to detail, some things we talked to him about for a few weeks,” Redick said when asked why he limited Russell’s role in Memphis. “And sometimes he’s really good with that kind of stuff. And other times he just goes back to certain habits. But it wasn’t a punishment. It just felt like for us to have a chance to win this game, that was the route we wanted to take.”

Russell finished with 12 points on 4-for-12 shooting (2-for-9 from 3), but he was hardly the only LA player to struggle against the Grizzlies. Dalton Knecht, making his first career start in place of Hachimura, shot 1-for-7 with all of his shots coming from beyond the three-point arc. Austin Reaves scored 19 but went just 2-for-9 from 3. Gabe Vincent, benefiting from Russell’s reduced minutes, went 2-for-8 overall and 1-for-6 from 3.

James, who on Wednesday became just the sixth player in league history to reach 1,500 career games, was asked about Redick’s claim about the commitment.

“At the end of the day, especially when you lose bodies, you have to compete,” said James, who was paired defensively with 6-foot-1 power forward Jaren Jackson Jr. for much of the night. “You have to compete even harder. You have to be there and give everything you have and on both ends. I think there were times when we did that, but the majority of the time I don’t think we kept up the energy.” and effort.”

It was the second loss of the trip in which LA has allowed more than 130 points, as the Lakers have fallen to 28th in defensive efficiency in the NBA, allowing 118.8 points per 100 possessions.

“We have to compete and we have to defend,” James said. “We gave up 50% of the shooting and they shot the 3-ball well. They got into the paint. They got offensive rebounds. They got second chance points. And they had some transition points as well.

“So it wasn’t too much offensively, even though we didn’t shoot the ball well. We have to do that better. But defensively, we have to hang our hat on that as well.”