December was certainly a challenging month for the Los Angeles Lakers, who struggled to find any kind of consistency after winning the In-Season Tournament.
Out of 15 games, L.A. only won seven, and lost eight of their last 11. It was not what the Lakers envisioned after winning the Tournament, which set an expectation that the team would build on that momentum and excitement.
Unfortunately, after leaving Las Vegas with a 14-9 record, L.A. is now 17-17 at the start of 2024. With a lackluster effort on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans against the Pelicans, losing 129-109, the Lakers get a chance to regroup after a road-intensive December schedule.
Now, the Lakers have a five-game homestand to kick off 2024 and Taurean Prince shared the importance of going home, recovering and regrouping as a team after only having five home games last month, as seen on Spectrum SportsNet:
“Yeah, we just want to get home, honestly. Get off the road and have some days where we can recover and use our facility to the best of our ability. Focus on whatever we got to focus on to get better.”
L.A. has been great at Crypto.com Arena this season with an 11-4 record, and now they will get an opportunity to protect home court and pick up some much-needed wins. Prince explained what he believes might be the reason for the Lakers’ improved play at home:
“Obviously it’s home-court. You get to sleep in your own bed to have your own energy that you can create in your home. I don’t know, just being home is different overall. Obviously you got the whole arena rooting for you so it will be good to have that consistently and we’ll see what we can do with it.”
Home games felt like a rarity in December, so it is nice for the Lakers to finally get a homestand and avoid road trips for a little bit. Now 34 games into the season, L.A. has struggled to find consistency away from Crypto.com Arena with a lowly 6-13 record.
Injuries have begun to spike up a little bit and now the opportunity to go home and recover is going to be huge for the Lakers. Prince mentions that being home creates a different kind of energy and that is what the team needs after looking lethargic in some of these road games.
While there is still plenty of games to be played, the Lakers need a bit more urgency to stack up wins in a compact Western Conference. January is a prime opportunity to do so with only five road games, one being a Los Angeles Clippers home game, out of a 15-game schedule.
Darvin Ham: Lakers need to ‘band together’
As it was a disappointing finish to 2023, the Lakers need to start fresh this year. Head coach Darvin Ham believes the team needs to ‘band together’ to overcome struggles and get back to their winning ways.
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