The Los Angeles Lakers have won just one game since Anthony Davis returned from his injury last week. LeBron James followed suit making his comeback on Friday, sharing the floor with the forward for the first time since mid-February.
But L.A. still lost to the Sacramento Kings, 110-106, making it the team’s fifth defeat in the last six games.
The Lakers have just nine games left before the end of the regular season. James said the reigning NBA champions have to squeeze the most out of those few remaining opportunities to rebuild chemistry for the playoffs. “The more minutes we get on the floor with our floor unit that we have will only help us and wins as well, but we can learn a lot on our losses,” he said.
“We got to continue to get better. We’re working in two new pieces in [Andre] Drummond and Ben [McLemore]. We’re also working in two new pieces that were already here in myself and AD into the fold. Every opportunity like film sessions, shootarounds and there’s not much practice time, but the games. We got to get better from that.”
L.A. has little amount of time to gear up for the postseason. But James believes the Lakers’ championship pedigree can give them an advantage in the playoffs, balancing out the team’s vulnerabilities. “Knowing how to make a run, know how to handle adversity. We know we can always hang our hat on that,” he said.
“Whether it results in wins, that’s for us. The game is played between the four lines, not on experience or on paper and things of that nature. We got to go out and do it, too. You can always go back and use some of those for sometimes when you feel like can I do this or can I not.”
Davis: Lakers undeterred despite losses
Further losses could potentially thrust the Lakers into the battle to avoid the play-in tournament with the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers lurking behind.
But Davis said L.A. has confidence in its abilities to weather the storm. “[N]o one has their head down or kind of sad because we’re losing games or anything like that,” he said.
“We know we’re gonna be fine, it’s an adjustment period, getting guys back, figuring roles out again and we got nine games left to try to get it going.”
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