On Monday night, Larry Nance Jr. played his first game for the Los Angeles Lakers since fracturing his hand.
In a 120-115 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, the Los Angeles Lakers welcomed back power forward Larry Nance Jr. Earlier in the season, Nance suffered a fractured bone in his hand that was supposed to keep him out for 4-6 weeks.
With a lot of hard work and rehab, Nance was able to return sooner than the original timetable for the game against the Clippers on Monday. In what turned out to be a really entertaining basketball game, Nance was able to regain his spot in the starting rotation.
Due to the success of rookie Kyle Kuzma in the starting lineup, many believed that Nance would come off the bench in his return. However, Walton decided to go with his original starting lineup from the beginning of the season with Nance it, which moved Kuzma to the bench.
Nance ended up playing well in his return. He shockingly totaled 30 minutes of action and also closed out the game down the stretch. In the loss, Nance totaled nine points, eight rebounds, and four steals.
While Nance did play well in his return, the 30 minutes that he played certainly took away from Kuzma’s playing time. In the loss, Kuzma ended up playing just 20 minutes and he also wasn’t on the court to close out the game until there was under a minute to play.
Considering how well Kuzma has done recently and really for his entire rookie season so far, it was shocking to see him play as little as he did off the bench. For Walton, he will now have an extremely challenging time trying to juggle the minutes of his power forward trio with Nance back and healthy.
Next: 3 Takeaways from loss to Clippers
Next up for the Lakers will be a very challenging game to close out the month against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday. Until then, Walton will have a lot of thinking to do about his rotations.