LeBron James has shared his true thoughts on the Lakers losing to the Sacramento Kings in an OT thriller.
“We did execute. We got some great looks. The timely shots that we weren’t able to knock down, they were able to knock down.”
LeBron: "We did execute. We got some great looks. The timely shots that we weren't able to knock down, they were able to knock down."
— Lakers Daily (@LakersDailyCom) October 30, 2023
The Kings walked away 127-132 winners in OT, improving their record to 2-1 to start the season. They pulled off the win despite losing De’Aaron Fox to injury and watching Domantas Sabonis foul out of the game. Malik Monk was a late-game savior, as the former Lakers star dropped 22 points to pull this win out in OT. Fox led all scorers with a sensational 37-point performance.
LeBron did everything in his power to keep the Lakers competitive late in the game. He scored the layup that ensured the Lakers could tie the game up before scoring nine late points in the final three minutes of OT. Even with his 27 points, 15 rebounds, and nine assists, the Lakers just couldn’t hit enough shots. Anthony Davis notched 30 points and 16 rebounds but was anonymous in OT.
Taurean Prince’s strong performance was erased by his OT bricks, as the 20-point night from the 3-and-D forward went to waste. Austin Reaves was benched for most of the second half after starting the game 1/12, so the shooting was the main anchor for the Lakers.
Darvin Ham Wants To Fix His Rotations
After the game, Lakers coach Darvin Ham candidly spoke about his poor rotations throughout the game.
“My rotation, we gotta really dig into that and really figure it out. … Buckling down on our rotation, I’ll start there. That’s the main thing that’s on my mind.”
Darvin Ham admits he needs to work on his rotations:
"My rotation, we gotta really dig into that and really figure it out. … Buckling down on our rotation, I'll start there. That's the main thing that on my mind."
— Lakers Daily (@LakersDailyCom) October 30, 2023
The Lakers had some puzzling rotational decisions that Ham kept defaulting to. Grinding D’Angelo Russell for 40 minutes and giving Gabe Vincent 30 minutes without giving Austin Reaves another chance in the game was odd. Reaves had a bad start but he could’ve at least gotten a chance late in the game when Vincent was either looking off shots or taking them and missing.
Taurean Prince is a 3-and-D forward who was being expected to do a lot more offensively as the game went on. While he can give you buckets in spurts, making him an actual scoring option means your team’s offense is really struggling. The inability to work Christian Wood into the late-game rotation when he was 3/3 on attempted shots was also a problem.
Coach Ham is a defense-first coach, proving he can excel in creating a defensive system last season that kept the Lakers in games when they were bad and allowed them to make it to the Western Conference Finals the second they got decent role-players. With all the changes to the roster, the defensive rhythm will only be built over time. Today, his coaching on both ends left a lot to be desired.
The Lakers’ defense had no answer for De’Aaron Fox for most of the game and Malik Monk late in the game. Given Ham’s pedigree on this front, creating a system that locked up Stephen Curry in the playoffs, the Lakers have been very lackluster on that end through the first three games of the season.
Hopefully, Ham figures out how he wants to use his personnel. Even when the roster was constructed, the defense was expected to be the bread-and-butter for the Lakers’ success. We haven’t seen that materialize just yet, but there are still 79 long games left for the Lakers to figure out what they need.
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