The Los Angeles Lakers are getting off to slow starts in recent games and it has torpedoed any positives the team was building.
The Los Angeles Lakers season is spiraling out of control. The Lakers have lost seven in a row since defeating the Houston Rockets on December 20th. They have lost 10 of their last 11 games overall.
A big reason for the struggles is injuries. The Lakers have been without Brook Lopez since December 18th. Brandon Ingram missed two games. Lonzo Ball is sidelined with a shoulder injury. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is in and out of the lineup because of legal trouble.
Every team deals with injuries, but the Lakers do not have a star player to bail them out. They need everyone healthy and playing to be competitive. When you remove some of those parts, they struggle mightily, and we have seen that in recent weeks.
The constant changing of rotations and lineups are beginning to frustrate some players and rising tensions. The current negative state of the Lakers is evident at the beginning of games.
The Lakers cannot afford to take nights off. Given the talent on the roster and what is available to head coach Luke Walton currently, they need to play hard and with energy every night. Once the injuries began piling up, that energy seemed to disappear as well.
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The Lakers have been starting games flat recently, result in huge deficits early in the game that they cannot overcome. It happened in a rivalry game against the Los Angeles Clippers, as Walton was upset with the effort. The Lakers were down by 17 points about seven minutes into the game.
Against the Memphis Grizzlies on December 27th the Lakers scored four points in the first half of the first quarter. On Christmas Night against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Lakers started slow but began even slower in the rematch.
The Lakers and Timberwolves faced off for the second time in a week on New Year’s Day. Once again the Lakers seemed to forget when the game started, as the Timberwolves blitzed them early and cruised the rest of the game.
Los Angeles was trailing by 16 before they even scored a point. It took them 4:14 to score their first point, as Jordan Clarkson knocked down a 3-pointer.
Clarkson didn’t even start the game for the Lakers. Walton was so disgusted with the team’s effort, he benched the starting five of Tyler Ennis, Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma and Julius Randle just more than three and a half minutes into the game.
These slow starts are demoralizing a young team that is going through a tough stretch. Without key players such as Lopez and Ball, the Lakers are struggling on both ends of the court.
Even without main contributors, the effort level should not waver. However, the Lakers haven’t brought the same intensity and effort level in recent weeks as we have become accustomed to seeing this season.
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Getting players healthy will help. Until then, Walton needs to find a lineup combination of players that can produce and get the job done as the current combination just isn’t cutting it.