Le Journal

The Los Angeles Lakers had momentum going into their road trip, riding a five-game winning streak prior to their matchup against the Atlanta Hawks. While the Lakers have had their own fair share of injuries to begin the 2025-26 season, the Hawks came into the night decimated as they were missing several of their key players including Trae Young and Jalen Johnson. Atlanta was also playing on the second night of a back-to-back, making it look like an easier matchup on paper for Los Angeles. However, the Lakers wound up playing arguably their worst game of the season and were blown out by the shorthanded Hawks. Los Angeles lost to Atlanta 122-102, often looking listless and disengaged on both ends of the floor. Head coach JJ Redick didn’t mince words when it came to his team’s performance, via Spectrum SportsNet: “Yeah, just not a lot to like tonight.” When asked whether or not this loss was more attributed to L.A. or Atlanta, Redick credited the home team for competing the right way: “They brought the requisite level of effort and urgency and physicality.” Redick also stewed when asked about how upsetting it was to kick off the road trip with such poor effort: “Yeah, very disappointing.” Lastly, Redick said he knew that Los Angeles was going to be in for a long night almost as soon as the game started: “I realized that in the first two minutes of the game.” Redick didn’t have much to say and for good reason as the loss could be simply summed up as the Lakers not competing or giving enough effort. It’s easy to overlook an injury-riddled team playing on a back-to-back, but there’s still no excuse for Los Angeles to lose as poorly as they did. It’s the first true dud of the season for the Lakers, but Redick has every reason to be upset with the showing to begin the road trip. The Western Conference is as competitive as ever, so losing winnable games could come back to bite L.A. down the stretch. Hopefully, this was a wake up call and the Lakers go back to playing their brand of basketball on Monday against the Charlotte Hornets. JJ Redick calls Marcus Smart the quarterback of the Lakers defense The Lakers defense against the Hawks was softer than usual, though it wasn’t for a lack of effort from Marcus Smart. Smart has endeared himself to the team and coaching staff for his two-way intensity and JJ Redick called him the quarterback of their defense. Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? It’s the best way to watch player interviews, exclusive coverage from events, participate in live shows, and more!

Adam Tendler. Photo by Lila Barth The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen below and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. On New Year’s Day 2020, Adam Tendler unexpectedly received his father’s final gift: a wad of cash stuffed into a manila envelope handed over in the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant in West Lebanon, NH. The strangely furtive exchange launched a musical journey. Tendler, a renowned concert pianist who grew up in Barre decided to use his inheritance to commission an all-star cast of modern composers to compose piano pieces exploring the theme of inheritance. In his pitch to his composer friends, Tendler wrote that he wanted “to plant that cash in the soil of something that may actually grow and — if you’ll forgive me — live on.” To his amazement, every composer he wrote to agreed to contribute. The result is a critically acclaimed album and concert tour called “Inheritances,” which the New York Times has called a collection of “little masterpieces.” Tendler will perform the album at the Barre Opera House on November 16. Tendler initially did not know what to do with the money that he received. Taking a trip or paying down a credit card seemed inadequate. “This is an inheritance so something should be done with it that sort of honors the gesture,” he told The Vermont Conversation. “The thing I do for a living is ideally creating experiences for people … which [are] cathartic and beautiful and [provide] a sense of connection,” he said. “What if I use it to facilitate that experience for people?” Tendler originally told his story in a 2023 essay for the New York Times, “My Father’s Death, An Envelope of Cash, A Legacy in Music.” Adam Tendler is a Grammy-nominated pianist and a recipient of the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists and the Yvar Mikhashoff Prize. The Minneapolis Star Tribune called him “currently the hottest pianist on the American contemporary classical scene.” After graduating from Indiana University, Tendler performed solo recitals in all fifty states as part of a grassroots tour he called America 88×50. He has appeared as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony and at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and other venues. He is on the piano faculty of the Steinhardt School at New York University. Tendler took a circuitous route from Barre to the concert stages of the world. After college, he worked at the landfill in Coventry and was a substitute teacher at U32 and Twinfield high schools. His relationship to his hometown is both affectionate and ambivalent. “I love Barre, I love Vermont, but it wasn’t really the most easy place to grow up as a queer kid,” he recalled. “Music was a safety hatch … a real place within which I could hide, protect myself, express myself. I created a little fortress within it.” “That vessel motivated me to actually start to really train to the point of getting into conservatory.” Tendler said that his work on “Inheritances” transformed his complicated feelings about his “semi-estranged” father “into something that feels like a companion in a good way.” “This project and having to sort of confront him on a human level, even though we’re talking about music, has brought me back to him. I am my father’s son. We are family.” Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Conversation: Pianist Adam Tendler transforms his father’s death into ‘little masterpieces’.