Following the first practice on the third day of training camp for the Los Angeles Lakers, head coach Luke Walton talked about the team's first scrimmage which took place on Wednesday night.
Although not angry at his team's performance, Walton didn't hold back on describing the sloppy play of his squad on Thursday at the practice facility in El Segundo.
“It was pretty gross,” Walton said of the team's first scrimmage. “It was sloppy, but it was good for the guys. We kind of took some of the restrictions off and let them just get out and run. They've been giving us a great effort and focus. We've been doing a lot of drill work, fundamentals, and defense. It was kind of a chance to just let them get out and let it out. Sprint up and down, so it was good for that, but the actual overall play was not very pretty.”
With a lot of new faces on the Lakers roster and players learning how to play together, it's not all that surprising their first scrimmage wouldn't be pretty. Walton went to suggest as much.
“The first scrimmage of training camp is normally not something that's fun to watch on film. The good things were that our guys gave effort, again. Defensively they looked good.
“We're asking them to run at every opportunity to just to kind of build that mindset, so there's way more turnovers than you'd like, but it was sloppy.”
The Lakers have only one more day of training camp before being thrust into the preseason on Saturday against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Walton's squad will go through another practice on Thursday night and finish things out on Friday morning in preparation to take on Karl-Anthony Towns and company on Saturday at the Honda Center.
Whether that sloppy play in team scrimmages gets cleaned up before Saturday's game remains to be seen.
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