The Los Angeles Lakers entered the season with championship expectations and doubled down on those by winning in the inaugural In-Season Tournament. However, despite incredible recent play from Anthony Davis, the Lakers have fallen on hard times all the way down to a .500 record.
They are 3-8 in their last 11 games and are at the bottom of the Play-In Tournament standings for the playoffs at No. 10.
There are several things the Lakers need to fix if they want to get their season back on track and climb the standings. One of those issues is the discrepancy between their home and road records. The Lakers are 11-4 at Crypto.com Arena this season and 6-13 on the road. During their current 3-8 stretch, they went 2-6 in away games.
Davis knows that the Lakers need to become a better road team. However, he’s first focused on making the most of a long stretch of home games, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Very important. We’ve been a pretty good home team thus far and now we got to take advantage of it. The road has been very brutal for us, now we get to sleep in our own beds, don’t have to worry about the travel, use our own resources, get some practice time in and let guys get healthy. So it’s gonna be big for us to make this homestead a good one and we got to take advantage of it, for sure.”
The Lakers have 10 home games and two road games between Wednesday and January 25. One of their two road games is against the Los Angeles Clippers, meaning they will travel away from L.A. just once over the next three weeks when they go to Salt Lake City for a game against the Utah Jazz on January 13.
This should serve both as a hard reset for a Lakers team that has been struggling to string together good outings and as a chance to rest from fatigue built up from playing so many road games. And although Davis has been playing lights out recently, it’s a chance for him to get some better rest between elite performances.
Like Davis, Taurean Prince shared the excitement the Lakers feel with getting a chance to play at home for a long stretch.
Anthony Davis on Lakers’ ‘biggest downfall’
Amid the Lakers’ stretch, Davis recently detailed their need to improve with rebounding and defensively overall, both of which he believes could ultimately spell doom for the team.
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