Coming off a double overtime thrilling win against the Golden State Warriors on Saturday, D’Angelo Russell and the Los Angeles Lakers needed some of that offense to carry over to the rest of their road trip.
Monday night featured another one-step forward, two-steps back situation as L.A. got blown out by the Houston Rockets, 135-119. Falling behind as much as 30, it seemed that energy and effort from Saturday did not translate, which was disappointing.
Russell struggled against the Rockets, shooting 8-for-19 from the field and 3-for-12 from 3-point range and played 41 minutes after playing 49 on Saturday. He explained the tough stretch of playing high minutes during a six-game road trip, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“It is tough. Our schedule is crazy right now, but I just think it’s mind over matter. Keep digging to get one. We want to win on this road trip, win outright and not go home with a losing record, so we have to get it out the mud.”
As things got out of hand in the third quarter against Houston and amid a back-to-back, the smart move would be to rest the starters for Tuesday’s game. But Russell and LeBron James played most of the fourth quarter, cutting the lead to 10. But ultimately it was a lost cause and Russell discussed if head coach Darvin Ham should have pulled them earlier to get ready for the Atlanta Hawks:
“I don’t know when we were down 30, but I think around the fourth quarter with seven or eight minutes (left), one more push and that’s when you usually (call it). I think that’s when the decision should be made, but that’s on Coach. And we got a back-to-back so I think it’s definitely something that we should do.”
Despite making a nice run to make things interesting, it did not make sense to play Russell and James high minutes in a double-digit loss. Perhaps that fourth quarter can carry over, but Russell thinks the minutes distribution is overloading players:
“I think with the minutes that guys are playing, it’s kind of hard to keep them out there with a unit. It’s just kind of overloading guys. Guys aren’t healthy once again, it forces you to go down even deeper on the bench. But like I said, that’s a coach’s decision and I mean it’s tough when you kind of run out of options. We did a lot of different things today and couldn’t find a way to respond. We’ll figure it out.”
The lack of consistency has been a theme all season long. L.A. simply cannot stack wins or consistent performances from game to game. Hovering around and below .500 with James and Anthony Davis playing nearly all the games is not ideal.
D’Angelo Russell fined $15,000 for kicking ball into stands against Warriors
The NBA announced on Monday that they have fined Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell $15,000 for kicking the game ball into the spectator stands, which he did after Stephen Curry missed at the final buzzer.
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