Follow Us
The Los Angeles Lakers are still figuring things out at this point of the season as they are easing in the new players into their system. Head coach Frank Vogel insisted that he will continue to look for the perfect combination that would work best, especially in crunch time situations where chemistry could spell the difference.
“We’re a deep team and we’re going to continue to look at things,” Vogel said via Lake Show Life. “We can play with Marc or Trezz finishing, we have the ability to slide A.D. over to the 5.
“I didn’t have ‘Kieff in the game because we wanted to have a ballhandler in there with ‘Bron in that stretch where ‘Kieff normally plays. He would’ve been cold to put him in late. I liked the lineup that we had out there. We just weren’t able to get the job done.”
In their most recent game against the Portland Trail Blazers, newcomer Montrezl Harrell was slotted in as one of the five players that closed out the tightly-contested game. However, he was exposed by opposing big men Jusuf Nurkic and Enes Kanter, who combined for 26 rebounds.
After that losing battle on the boards, Vogel considered playing his other big men in Marc Gasol and Markieff Morris.
The Purple and Gold also failed to limit the Blazers’ dangerous backcourt combination of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. The former produced 31 points while the latter added 20 points and 11 assists of his own. Gary Trent Jr. also posed a ton of problems for the Lakers as he contributed 28 points in 23 minutes of action en route to a 115-107 victory.
With a 2-2 record, the Lakers are certainly far from where they want to be by the end of the season. They still have to get the reps in see which combinations would work best. But given the strong team culture and winning pedigree of most of their players, it seems like a when rather than an if.
Frank Vogel and the rest of the team will look to execute better as they head to face the San Antonio Spurs for a bid to snag their third win of the season.