Every game is a must-win coming out of the All-Star break for Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham as he finds himself in another high-pressure situation fighting for playoff seeding.
That was the case on Wednesday when the Lakers were playing the crosshall rival Los Angeles Clippers for potentially the final time as the road team in Crypto.com Arena. The schedule gets tough moving forward so the Lakers need to beat some quality competition, but things did not look good as they trailed 21 in the fourth quarter.
Thankfully, LeBron James put the team on his back, scoring 19 points, making five triples. James outscored the Clippers by himself, which is tremendous in his 21st season and Ham described what it was like watching that kind of performance.
“Everybody was just cheering him on,” Ham said. “He had to tape a cape tucked under his seat on the bench, I guess. He had to whip it out, he definitely did that, put the cape on and just got aggressive and got in a good rhythm. He’s been shooting the ball extremely well this whole entire season and that was just another case of it. Once he got in rhythm and with his playmaking skills, he sets the tone with his shooting and going down hill, but once they started scheming and trying to double team late, he was able to pick them apart with a pass and that’s just who he is.”
Seeing that his star player had it going, Ham shared a particular action that he liked and used frequently once he saw that James was rolling offensively.
“It’s actually called point rub, it’s targeting the weakest defender and targeting where we feel like we can get an advantage and he just caught fire,” he said. “I told him in between quarters that we got to get up 3s, we got to score the ball and if you’re open from 3, be aggressive from the 3-point line. And he did just that. He set the tone in that regard as well. But thank God he’s on our team.”
With not much room for error as the regular season winds down, Ham describes what this kind of comeback win against a quality opponent can do for the Lakers moving forward.
“I mean, we just showed a lot of character and resilience,” Ham said. “It was tough being down 21 at one point, but just being able to fight through that, everybody banded together, we didn’t fragment. We drew closer together, took a good look at ourselves at halftime, again, it was a tough third quarter. But even still, just continued to fight. As long as there’s time left on the clock, we have to fight.
“We knew time was precious with another game to play tomorrow night so it was great… It was a great carryover game, but tonight means nothing if we don’t come out and take care of business tomorrow night.”
Darvin Ham wants Lakers to ‘gang rebound’ & focus on beginning & end of defensive possessions
Ending the opposing team’s offensive possessions and limiting second-chance opportunities is something that L.A. has struggled with as of late. Ham wants the Lakers to ‘gang rebound’ and focus on the beginning and end of defensive possessions to reward their defense.
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