Rowan Kavner
MILWAUKEE – J.J. Redick played a short 28 regular season games for the Bucks during the 2012-13 season, hitting a career-low 31.8 percent of his shots that year.
That was not the same Redick who torched Milwaukee on Wednesday night for 31 points, coming two points shy of tying his career high during a third straight season with the Clippers in which he’s shot at least 45 percent from the floor.
“It’s not a revenge game,” Redick joked. “I wasn’t here long enough.”
Redick caught fire after halftime, scoring 15 points in the third quarter on 6-of-8 shooting. He was 8-for-10 and 4-for-5 from 3-point range with 22 points in the second half alone.
The looks had been there all night, but after going 3-for-8 in the first half, he started hitting at will as the game wore on. Once the rhythm came, it didn’t stop. After three quarters, Redick already had a season-high 24 points.
“It felt like I was in rhythm in the first quarter,” Redick said. “Even though I was whatever I was from the field, I don’t think I shot a good percentage, but I felt like I had a good rhythm there. Once you get a couple in the row in the third quarter, you just kind of feel it a little bit.”
Head coach Doc Rivers said he felt the Clippers could continue to get Redick open, and it was only a matter of time before the rim appeared to get bigger.
“It’s a great example for all our players,” Rivers said. “When you’re a shooter, you’re a shooter. Just keep shooting.”
Redick had no problem doing that.
The Clippers’ starting shooting guard references “regression to the mean” a lot. He believes when a good shooter gets into a funk, it’s nothing more than that, and eventually the shots will start to fall.
When Redick had a three-point performance earlier this year against Utah shortly after returning from a back injury, he followed that up by scoring at least 18 points and hitting at least 57 percent of his shots the following two games.
After an off night in his return from an ankle injury in Minnesota, where he went 1-for-9 from the floor, Redick answered with this gem, hitting 11 of his 18 shots and going 6-for-9 from 3-point range.
“I try not to compartmentalize things where it’s thinking about the last game,” Redick said. “Hopefully there’s no carryover, like on to the next thing. I always talk about regressing to the mean, but I feel like if I take the shots I take in practice and shoot all the time, eventually I’ll hit some.”
He did more than that, and his teammates continued to feed him. They know how important Redick’s movement is to the offense, and when he’s hitting, it opens up looks for everyone else.
Since Redick’s been on the team, the Clippers are 29-4 when he reaches the 20-point mark. Chris Paul complimented Redick’s movement without the ball, and getting him the ball was nothing more than a part of playing.
When Redick gets it going the way he did, Paul said everyone finds him.
“He attracts so much attention,” Paul said. “We just keep moving it, guys get open shots, (DeAndre Jordan) gets dunks, and that’s big for us.”
