After an encouraging victory on Sunday, the Los Angeles Lakers seemingly took a step back on Monday in their loss to the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers fell apart in the fourth quarter, turned the ball over 16 times, and gave up 18 offensive rebounds to Phoenix, all problem areas for the team throughout the year.
Head coach Byron Scott was extremely unhappy with his team afterwards, saying the team needed to ‘man up’ and was not willing to hear about the team’s schedule wearing the team down.
However, after watching tape of the game, Scott changed his tone and said the team wasn’t as bad as he initially thought according to Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times at Thursday’s practice:
Byron Scott said his initial reaction after Suns loss – then looking at the tape, he doesn't think the Lakers were as bad as he had thought
— Eric Pincus (@EricPincus) November 19, 2015
After a couple of days, Scott also conceded that the Lakers road-heavy schedule probably wore the team down via Pincus:
Scott said he recognizes the team's schedule to that point wore them down but they had improved on the road, good win over Detroit
— Eric Pincus (@EricPincus) November 19, 2015
It is good to see Scott recognizing the steps that the Lakers have taken in the past few games. Even though the wins haven’t started coming just yet, the Lakers improved throughout their road trip and looked excellent in their Sunday victory over Detroit.
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Lakers as 10 of their next 13 games are on the road including eight straight to begin the month of December. Hopefully, the improvements the Lakers have made will continue or this season will get a lot worse very quickly.