The Los Angeles Lakers suffered arguably their most embarrassing loss of the season as they fell at home to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night. Luke Walton’s team allowed the Cavaliers to end a league-worst 12 game losing streak and the head coach spoke about hoping his team was frustrated.
Once again the Lakers hurt themselves as they shot just 20.6 percent from three-point range and 59.3 percent at the free throw line. The team’s lack of shooting was a concern at the beginning of the season and without LeBron James and Rajon Rondo, those issues are completely front and center.
The Lakers don’t have any time to dwell on their issues however, and were back at work trying to improve and get themselves out of this recent slump. Some minor injury concerns left the Lakers with only seven available players, however, and thus led to a focus in the film room rather than on the court.
“There’s a seriousness in this gym right now,” Walton said after practice. We had a long, good film session. Guys were talking, we were pointing things out. We only had seven active bodies for practice today, so we knew we had to get most of our work done in the film room.
“We did more of a film day, got a tone of shots up and worked on some basic fundamentals on the offensive end of the ball.”
Frustration should be expected after a performance like the one the Lakers put forth. The team now has recent losses to both the Cavaliers and New York Knicks, the two worst teams in the league record-wise. Without LeBron the Lakers have shown that no game on the schedule is a guarantee win.
Walton has suggested that a change to the starting lineup could be in store before the Lakers’ next game and hopefully that will give the Lakers an extra boost as well, but if the mindset of the group doesn’t change, no lineup adjustment will matter. The frustration the team is feeling has to lead to a renewed focus and energy on the court.
And as for their continued trouble with free throws, players were separated into groups and working on free throws when members of the media were allowed to observe the end of Monday’s practice.
Walton did not identify the entire group of players who were limited in practice, explaining it was at the suggestion of the training staff.
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