After head coach Luke Walton called him out at practice the day before, Julius Randle was on a mission in Tuesday’s victory over Memphis.
After only 37 minutes of play, Randle finished the game with 19 points, 14 rebounds and a career-best 11 assists.
Not only was his triple-double the third of the 22-year-old’s young career, but it was also the first allowed by the Grizzlies in a league-high 177 games.
“I think he’s gonna rack up way more than that in the years to come,” D’Angelo Russell said at Wednesday’s practice. “And we know he’s capable of doing that at a high level almost every night. It’s just up to him.”
Randle was at peak efficiency, shooting 9-of-15 from the field while assisting on eight 3-pointers with only two turnovers.
The Lakers outscored the Grizzlies and their league-best defense by 21 in Randle’s time on the floor.
“Obviously he can continue to get triple-doubles,” Walton said. “Do I think he’s gonna get one all the time? No, because a lot has to go right for you. … If he plays with the alertness and the focus he did last game, he’s gonna fill up the stat sheet on most nights.”
Alert was certainly an understatement as Randle — or as Nick Young called him, “the Juggernaut with handles” — was zooming all across the floor, scoring 18 points in the paint and 10 off fast-breaks.
And on one of the biggest statistical nights of his career, Randle was making the plays that don’t show up in the typical box score as well.
Mainly though dribble-handoffs, the 6-foot-9, 250-pounder tallied six screen assists for Russell and his fellow guards.
On the other end, he was active with two deflections, two loose balls recovered and 11 contested shots against a team that shot just 39.0 percent on the night.