After seeing his players stumble in the fourth quarter throughout a 4-1 first-round series loss to the Timberwolves, Redick says improved conditioning is a must…

EL SEGUNDO — Not long after the Lakers’ 2024-25 season came to a disappointing conclusion with their Game 5 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves last week, the analysis of what they can do to improve next season began.

And after witnessing his team struggle in the fourth quarters throughout the first-round playoff series, Coach JJ Redick immediately mentioned players’ conditioning as something that needs to improve if they want to contend for a championship in 2025-26.

“I’ll start with the offseason and the work that’s required in an offseason to be in championship shape,” Redick said during a joint end-of-season news conference with President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka. “And we have a ways to go as a roster. And certainly, there are individuals that were in phenomenal shape. There’s certainly other ones that could have been in better shape. That’s where my mind goes immediately is we have to get in championship shape.”

Redick didn’t mention any players by name with his critique, although it’s well known that conditioning was one of the criticisms the Dallas Mavericks had of 26-year-old Slovenian star Luka Doncic before shockingly trading him to the Lakers in early February.

But the Lakers’ team-wide struggles with not being able to match Minnesota’s stamina was one of the many factors that led to the Timberwolves winning the first-round series as decisively as they did.

“It’s hard sometimes to admit this and maybe this is hard sometimes for a coach or a player to admit this: we lost to a better team,” Redick said. “That’s just the reality. We did. And we put ourselves in a position to win Games 3, 4 and 5 and we weren’t able to do that in the fourth quarter. And that’s where you really have to evaluate and really try to grow from as a coach and certainly as a group, whatever that group looks like next year.”

The sixth-seeded Timberwolves won the fourth quarter in all five games of the playoff series, ultimately outscoring the third-seeded Lakers by a combined score of 127-85 in the final periods.

The Lakers failing to execute was a factor.

As was Minnesota’s stifling defense, leading to the Lakers shooting just 29.3% from the field and 23.1% from 3-point range in the fourth quarters.

But the Lakers’ not being as well-conditioned as they could be was also a factor in Redick’s eyes.

And it’s something they hope to fix by the time training camp begins in the fall.

“It’s something that we’ll build out over the next couple weeks with our player development coaches, our performance staff, our training staff,” Redick said. “We obviously recognize it’s a long season and some guys have routines and it’s not that we’re looking to completely break routines, but we do want to have a program in place for each guy so that when they come back in mid-August, September, we can build off of that and start training camp in a really good spot, conditioning-wise.”

Redick, who wrapped up his first season as a head coach, also acknowledged he could be better, saying he would use the offseason and feedback from multiple sectors of the franchise to figure out how he could improve.

“I’ll use my own thoughts to evaluate myself, I’ll use what my players say and what my coaching staff says to evaluate, but I know I can be better,” Redick said. “And I know I will get better. I don’t necessarily take any satisfaction from how the year went.

“That’s not to say I’m not proud of what the group was able to do, and how we were able to figure out things on the fly and put ourselves in a position to have homecourt in the first round. But there’s always ways to get better. And I can get a lot better.”