The Los Angeles Lakers saw their five-game winning streak snapped on Friday when they lost to the Indiana Pacers on the road.
Los Angeles dropped 150 points on Indiana at home last week, but the latter made it a point to play much better defense this time around. The Lakers were cold the entire night from the perimeter, especially from beyond the arc as they shot a paltry 5-of-30 from distance.
It was a lackluster performance from the Lakers, who looked tired on both ends of the floor. Head coach Darvin Ham explained that there were a series of issues that led to the team’s downfall, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Yeah, I thought we were running in mud a little bit,” Ham said. “Third game in four nights, double-OT game in Milwaukee and then a game against a physical Memphis squad. You come here and it’s like the Indy 500, as fast as they play. So it was just a combination of a lot of different factors.
“We tried to post and take advantage, get early work done in the paint and a lot of times, they’re jamming us up with different schemes, showing a crowd. We just didn’t have a lot of pop on the offensive side of things and guys missed shots they normally make, had good looks and just didn’t go down. A couple other times, us just trying to force our will in the post or to the paint, we got out of rhythm a little bit so a lot of shots came up against the clock. But overall, we were playing some great basketball, we’ll get our treatments, we’ll get our nutrition and recovery going and be ready to bounce back on Sunday.”
L.A.’s road trip had been going well before the loss to Indiana, and as Ham noted the team didn’t play poorly until late in the second half. The Pacers clearly had a better game plan for the rematch and they executed it well to make life difficult for the Lakers.
While a loss at this juncture of the season isn’t ideal, Los Angeles has an excellent chance to make up ground with some easy games on the slate.
Taurean Prince believes Lakers can be dangerous regardless of who’s in lineup
The Lakers appear to be hitting their stride before the playoffs begin and they’ve gotten excellent contributions from just about everyone. Taurean Prince acknowledged the fact that the locker room believes they can be dangerous no matter who’s in the lineup.
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