The Los Angeles Lakers have been in a rut since the NBA In-Season Tournament and appeared to be facing long odds in snapping their losing streak against a rolling L.A. Clippers team.
The Clippers started off poorly shortly after trading for James Harden, but they quickly turned things around to reel off a massive winning streak to propel them near the top of the Western Conference Standings.
However, the Lakers appeared ready to step it up as they held on to beat the Clippers for a much-needed win.
LeBron James led all scorers in the contest and emphasized the need for he and the rest of the roster to improve as the 2023-24 season progresses.
“We got to continue to get better,” James said. “Try to use this to catapult a little better play from us, but it still don’t take away from the fact that how we’ve been playing like the last 11 to 12 games. Tonight was a good start. Hopefully, we can start from here and continue to build, but it was great to get D-Lo back. That helped.
“Vando gave us a huge spark off the bench. C-Wood gave us a huge spark off the bench and also Max [Christie] too, so we got some big-time minutes from the guys off the bench, and that definitely helped us.”
While James said the Lakers need to keep building, he did acknowledge that the win is a positive for the team’s morale in the moment.
“It doesn’t fix everything, obviously, but it helps,” James said. “We got to still learn from the wins more than we learn from losses because you lose, you’re able to like look at it, ‘Okay, this is why we lost. Okay, we got to do this,’ but then when you win, the first human instinct is to do, ‘Ah, we won. Okay.’
“But no, we got to learn from the mistakes we have tonight, which we had too many still. So we got to learn from this tomorrow.”
The Lakers needed a win to help remove some of the mounting pressure on head coach Darvin Ham and the roster. Anthony Davis echoed James’ comments, saying that they need to build off this win.
Lakers’ LeBron James credits Tyronn Lue
James was asked about the affect Harden’s had on the Clippers’ turnaround, but he was quick to correct the question and credited head coach Tyronn Lue for helping them bounce back.
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