The Los Angeles Lakers have struggled all year to find any sort of rhythm from game to game. They have yet to compile a win streak longer than four and have won three games in a row only five times. While there are certainly on-court reasons for this inconsistency, there have been many injuries across the roster, from Rui Hachimura to Jarred Vanderbilt to Gabe Vincent and more.
Hachimura has been one of the biggest victims of the Lakers’ inability to find a consistent rotation this season. He has 21 starts in 50 games, but also has 13 outings of less than 20 minutes. He’s missed 14 games to go along with that. So with all of this, it’s no surprise that Hachimura has had troubles with his own rhythm.
He spoke about how the injuries and players returning has constantly shuffled the team’s rotation, which has been a challenge for everybody.
“It’s hard, it’s for sure hard, and like you said that part, but also, Vando is gonna come back soon. Gabe [Vincent] is gonna come back soon. Christian Wood is gonna come back soon. It’s gonna be tough rotation-wise, even me, you know? You gotta figure it out,” Hachimura admitted.
“I don’t know what the team gonna do but it is what it is, this is the NBA. Each game we got to just prepare for your role and you got to play hard, big energy and just play a role. That’s good. That’s that’s the key, I feel like.”
Starring in a player’s role has been a theme for the Lakers for several seasons now, but it has become particularly difficult when players’ roles are seemingly shifting from night to night. But Hachimura is, at this point in his career, a veteran that knows what it takes to succeed.
Even when the Lakers get fully healthy, there is no doubt that Hachimura will have the opportunity to be impactful.
Rui Hachimura explains what went wrong against Kings
Despite Hachimura scoring 29 points on 13-for-17 shooting and the Lakers having an early 19-point lead in the first, the Kings flipped the script in the second quarter and never looked back. Hachimura described where he saw the game flip, which was the second frame when De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk caught fire.
“I was talking at halftime, I said we had the greatest start the whole season,” Hachimura said. “It was a great start, and we were locked in defensively, and we’re sharing the ball on the offensive side, and we’re moving. Just all of a sudden, I think in the second quarter, they came back. Malik [Monk] and [De’Aaron] Fox got in a rhythm and we couldn’t figure it out the whole game. We tried to come back in the third quarter and in a little bit of the fourth, but it was kind of too late. They were already in a rhythm, and when both of them are in the rhythm, it’s hard to play defense because we can’t really double and all that. So yeah, just did the second quarter was the game.”
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