Lakers feeling greater sense of urgency with lengthy homestand – Orange County Register

LOS ANGELES — The last time the Lakers were in this position – having a lengthy stay in Southern California in front of them – they didn’t fully take advantage of the opportunity.
So with the team getting another shot at an extended homestand to get their season back on track before their season-long Grammy road trip, the sense of urgency has been elevated.
“You have a prideful group in there and it’s been frustrating,” Coach Darvin Ham said. “Again, it’s things beyond your control. A guy misses three games here, another guy missed four games here, five games, six games, what have you. Gabe [Vincent] was supposed to be a big piece and still will be once he comes back. But just him having to be put on the shelf for this long, it’s been tough as well.
“Having said all of that, nobody’s gonna feel sorry for you, nor do we want them to. We pride ourselves on figuring things out, and we’ll definitely do that. And we’re in it for the fight, but we’re not gonna stop swinging. We’ll get this thing turned around. We’ll get some consistency going here and let the chips fall where they may. But we definitely have a focus of turning this thing around and getting to where we need to get to.”
Including Monday night’s matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Crypto.com Arena, the Lakers will host five of their next six games. The lone “road” game in that bunch is against the Clippers, meaning they’ll play in Los Angeles for the next 1½ weeks before a six-game road trip from Jan. 27-Feb. 5 – which ends shortly before the league-wide trade deadline (Feb. 8).
The Lakers had a five-game homestand before Saturday’s road loss to the Utah Jazz but they went 2-3 in those games.
So if there ever was a time for the Lakers to show they can turn their season around, it’s now.
The Lakers entered Monday 19-21 – the same record they had through 40 games last season. But the context couldn’t be more different.
When the Lakers reached 19-21 last year, they won five consecutive games to reach the mark after a slow start to the season. This season’s Lakers entered Monday as losers in six of their previous eight games and 12 of their past 17.
The Lakers were active at last season’s trade deadline to spark their turnaround, leading to a playoff run to the Western Conference finals. Jarred Vanderbilt, one of the players the team traded for last winter, believes the Lakers have what it takes internally to turn their season around this season.
“I mean, with us, it’s difficult because people are in and out of the lineup due to injury or whatever,” Vanderbilt said. “So it’s tough to still try to build that camaraderie within ourselves. But I mean, that’s part of the season. It’s tough. Like I said, we changed lineups so much. It’s tough to try to get that consistent continuity. But I do believe we are capable of doing it internally.”
REDDISH OUT
Starting wing Cam Reddish was sidelined Monday because of left knee effusion (swelling). He only played the first halves of the previous two games, being ruled out at halftime of each game because of soreness in the knee.
“He’ll get a chance to look at our doctors here in a few,” Ham said. “We have no official word as of yet.”
With Reddish sidelined, the Lakers started D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Taurean Prince, LeBron James and Anthony Davis – the Day One starting lineup before Reddish replaced Reaves.
“Just cohesiveness, continuity,” Ham said of what he’s looking for from the starting group.” And it’s been tough. You get this news at different points of the season. Cam is a perfect example of guys being in and out of the lineup frequently. It’s not like you’re scratching your head trying to throw different stuff against the wall. It’s like real issues going on that’s causing these lineup changes. But we have a plan that I think we’ll roll out for the foreseeable future.”

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