It has been a rocky tenure for Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham as the regular season has presented some serious challenges for the team up to this point. After an improbable run to make the postseason, the hope was Ham could essentially get to the playoffs with ease after a successful free agency.
However, that is not the case more than halfway through this season as the Lakers have struggled to find any kind of consistency. This feels like deja vu, as L.A. finds itself in yet another uphill climb to the postseason and another trade deadline that could include some more fireworks.
One of the prominent issues early this season was winning the glass, specifically limiting second-chance opportunities for opponents. But, on Tuesday against the L.A. Clippers, the Lakers won the offensive rebounding battle 13-6, which helped the game remain competitive and something that Ham wants the team to carry with them moving forward.
“Absolutely. It’s something we identified and talked about, we’ve been talking about. But we really made it an emphasis this morning in shootaround,” Ham said when asked about attacking the offensive glass. “We have five or six guys who really can get us some money on the offensive glass in terms of getting us extra possessions for us and certain guys that their jobs are gonna be just to support whoever is crashing. They have to sprint back and start our transition defense early. Yeah, it’s something we definitely identified and it went well tonight.”
This has not been a strong suit of the Lakers as their transition defense is poor, but Ham believes he can have one or two players battle on the offensive boards, while the rest get back on defense. He was hesitant to the idea but thinks the team’s size and length help a ton.
“Yes. Where I come from, offensive rebounding was a luxury that you allowed maybe one or two guys to enjoy. Our emphasis in previous places, previous stops I’ve been – Atlanta, Milwaukee – we always emphasized transition defense. As fast as the league is playing now, you feel kind of naked if you don’t get someone back in the paint early and someone back tracking the ball,” he said.
“But with our size, our length, our athleticism, we feel like maybe we can strike gold and do both. So we’ve identified certain guys who their job when the shot goes up is just getting back to start the process of setting up our defense and certain guys are gonna have the freedom to go crash and try to get us extra possessions, all simultaneously.”
Jarred Vanderbilt led the charge on the offensive rebounding front with six, while Anthony Davis chipped in with four, D’Angelo Russell with two and Rui Hachimura secured one as well.
The Lakers’ size and length were highlighted heading into this season, but it feels like the team is not taking advantage of it. If they can give themselves more opportunities to score, it would obviously help for an offense that has been up and down for L.A.
Darvin Ham proud of how Lakers competed against Clippers without LeBron James
Tuesday night featured a Lakers team without their star LeBron James, who got the night off against an extremely good Clippers team. Despite making the game close in the fourth quarter, the Lakers came up short, but Ham is proud of how his team competed without James.
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