The Los Angeles Lakers walked into Fiserv Forum tonight needing more than just a win. They needed a reminder of the team they were a week ago, before their road trip turned into a slide, and questions around them only got louder. The statement win against the Milwaukee Bucks tonight had the feel of a reset, and the urgency in the LA defense, communication, and even the team’s demeanor was immediately evident. After the buzzer, head coach JJ Redick explained exactly how they pulled themselves out of it.

Redick went straight to culture, but cited an intriguing name: Jay-Z. “I reference a lot of Hard Knock Life Volume Two, classic Jay-Z album,” he said. “There’s a song on there called A Week Ago. And one of the lines, the main line, is, ‘It was all good just a week ago.’” The echoes from the music are almost eerie, as if they had been written specifically for the Lakers.

Redick used the lyric not as flair, but as truth, and explained the connection, saying, “I told the team yesterday, a week ago from yesterday, we were practicing in Atlanta. We were 7-2. We were feeling good about ourselves. And then you don’t play well for three games. A week in this league – I mean, this is the NBA. And you got to find moments to recapture what makes you a good basketball team.”

That was the message behind his metaphor, and the Lakers needed to hear it: not just a reminder of what they had been, but also the challenge they faced to get back to it.

JJ Redick didn’t pull the Jay-Z line out of nowhere. It’s been a personal shorthand of his for a while now, and even last season, he used it at one critical juncture in the season. In December 2024, the Lakers had faced one of the ugliest stretches of their season: 7 losses in 10 games, falling closer and closer to a .500 record, and disengagement everywhere.

Back then, the then-rookie head coach said, “I think it’s a Jay-Z song, I don’t know the exact title, but it says ‘It was all good just a week ago.’ And the reality is that’s the NBA. Every team is gonna go through a stretch like this… The games come so fast, and you have an injury or you have a couple of bad games and you go into a funk or into a shooting slump… I felt that as a player, certainly feel it in this stretch as a coach.”

Redick‘s words seemed to strike a nerve with players even back then; the team decided to pick things back up and dial in, going on a 6-3 stretch going into the new year following Redick’s comments.

As Laker Nation knows by now, Redick will continue to try to push buttons to help this team reach the next level, but ultimately, it’s on the players to execute as they did in Milwaukee tonight.

Maxi Kleber Leads by Example As ‘Laker Spirit’ Becomes More Than a Motto

The answers, JJ Redick explained, came in the least ideal conditions. “Sometimes with these turnarounds, the prep for the players becomes difficult… We got [into Milwaukee] at 3:00 a.m. last night. We didn’t want to overwhelm them when they were zombies at 12:00 p.m. So, we met at 40 on the clock. And I thought, you know, Coach Ty [Abbott], Scotty [Scott Brooks], Greg [St. Jean], Drew Seifert, like all these guys that worked on this scout, did a really good job of creating clarity for our team, and we were able to go out and execute that, and that’s a credit to our guys.”

The adjustments that Redick and company made were philosophical. After losing to the shorthanded defending champion OKC Thunder and an Atlanta Hawks team missing two of their best players, the team had to focus on its identity.

In particular, Redick credited one key player: little-used forward Maxi Kleber. “Maxi Kleber has not been in the rotation all season,” he said.

“Knew he was going to be part of the rotation tonight. Guy scores, he makes one basket, but had a huge impact on the game with his physicality, his talk, and just what I would describe as what we want Laker Spirit to be. Just being a great teammate. On the court, the defense, the rebounding, all the stuff that are winning basketball plays. He was a big part of that tonight.”

The kind of culture Redick talked about isn’t preached, but embodied, and on a night the Lakers needed it most, Kleber embodied all of it.