One the second night of a back-to-back, the Los Angeles Lakers simply didn’t have it and were blown out by the Oklahoma City Thunder to end their road trip.
The Lakers were able to rest LeBron James and Anthony Davis the previous night against the Detroit Pistons, and the two stars did their best to lift the team past the Thunder. However, it was all for naught as Oklahoma City was fresh and had no problem dispatching Los Angeles as the game wore on.
Injuries have sapped the depth on the roster and head coach Darvin Ham has been forced to figure things out on the fly. Every night, it seems like someone is ruled out prior to tipoff, so it’s been challenging for the coaching staff to adjust.
Ham spoke about the difficulties of playing through injuries though still believes he and the team are following their plan, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We feel like we got a solid plan and process in place. Whatever can be done extra, obviously we’ll explore that. But right now, we’re comfortable where we are getting guys back to playing in a real game. Unfortunate things happen, you get these knick knack injuries, like Jaxson [Hayes] for example, he gets pulled out. And then Cam, working him back in. So you have to be smart. You can’t be selfish and put these guys at risk just to throw them out there to be balanced.
“But these other guys are getting opportunities, Max Christie and Jalen [Hood-Schifino], those guys, they’re getting real NBA minutes and so they’re starting to understand how hard they have to play and what’s expected of them against top tier competition. So it’s always a silver lining, it’s always glass half full. But we’ll take the day off tomorrow and come back to shootaround on [Saturday] and continue to watch some film on us, get prepared for Houston and try to put our best foot forward and hopefully we get some good medical news in between time.”
Several players are either playing through injury or working themselves back, so Ham has to balance that on a nightly basis. Jarred Vanderbilt, Gabe Vincent, Rui Hachimura and Cam Reddish are among those that have already missed significant time, which makes it tough for the Lakers to build continuity and see what they have with this roster.
It’s frustrating to see the Lakers lose, but the overall goal remains to be as healthy as possible for the stretch run.
LeBron James says Lakers won’t know what they have until healthy
At this point, the team sounds like a broken record when discussing how injuries have impacted their performance but James still emphasized that they won’t know what they have until everyone’s available.
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