After the Los Angeles Lakers took a stunning 3-0 series lead in Houston, first-year coach JJ Redick said something that perfectly captures why this team has defied all expectations.

"Just the feeling you get, of people hating you... and then the opportunity to silence them. But also kind of ruin their day," Redick said with a slight grin, according to the postgame broadcast. "You just got to embrace it."

Folks, that's a coach who gets it. That's a guy who spent 15 years in this league, who played in hostile environments, who knows what it takes to win on the road in the playoffs. And he's passing that mentality to a Lakers team that nobody - and I mean nobody - gave a chance in this series.

But here's what really impressed me: Redick's accountability. After the Game 3 win, he addressed his team by admitting his own mistakes first.

"We go into overtime, and it's not pretty. I made mistakes in overtime. We made a couple game plan mistakes, we made a couple coverage mistakes," Redick told his players, per the team's broadcast. "We just kept playing."

You hear that? A rookie head coach, in the biggest moment of his young career, starts by owning his errors. That's leadership. That's how you build trust. That's how you get a team of role players to believe they can beat a team full of stars.

I've seen a lot of coaches in my 20 years covering this game. The great ones know when to pump up their guys and when to look in the mirror. Redick is showing both skills in his first playoff run.

The Lakers were heavy underdogs in this series. They're playing without and . They're starting guys like and relying on a 41-year-old to carry them. And yet, here they are, one win away from the upset of the decade.