The Los Angeles Lakers ended their four-game road trip with a loss to the Detroit Pistons. Overall they went 1-3 on the trip with all three losses by 10 points or less in games that the Lakers could have won.
Despite the losses, one person who has been playing well recently is center Brook Lopez. After a rough first half of the season, Lopez has turned things around by working primarily in the paint. He is averaging 17.2 points and 5.2 rebounds over the last five games.
Regardless of his performance, however, Lopez admitted that he, and the Lakers as a whole, are frustrating themselves with their play as of late, via Bill Oram of the Southern California News Group:
“I think we’re really just frustrating ourselves,” center Brook Lopez said. “I know I am. We feel as a team we definitely can be better. They’re very winnable games, (with) all respect to the teams we played, we feel a lot of it’s on us.”
Some of the Lakers’ struggles undoubtedly have to do with the injuries the team has suffered and the resulting fatigue. Brandon Ingram and Josh Hart have both been out for a while, and even Isaiah Thomas missed the last couple of games with his ongoing hip issues.
This has left head coach Luke Walton with no choice but to rely on his starters in a big way. Lopez is averaging 33 minutes over the last 10 games while Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are all hovering around 39 minutes over that same timeframe.
For players, however, none of that matters and the team has had chances to win games and have simply come up short. That will undoubtedly frustrate players regardless of who is and isn’t suiting up, especially when they feel like they can be playing better.
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