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After their disappointing 113-102 road loss on Wednesday to the Sacramento Kings, the Los Angeles Lakers (8-11) have taken advantage of their extended break over the last few days.
According to an article written on Sunday by Matthew Moreno of Lakers Nation, Lakers head coach Luke Walton is confident that four full days off in between games is just what his young squad needed.
“I think we accomplished what we wanted with this break, which was physically and mentally giving these guys time off,” Walton said on Sunday. “A lot of them are young and not used to the grind of what this is. Even some guys that have been here, they’re playing big-time minutes right now.”
With eight of the Lakers' next 11 contests on the road, Walton thinks the rest will have a positive impact going forward during such a tough stretch of games.
“It was nice to be able to have a little break in the middle of the season,” Walton said. “Hopefully we’ll get back to what we were doing well before.”
Luke Walton also added that his Lakers need to focus on improving their defensive tenacity and instead of relying on the jump shot, they should attack the paint more often.
Article Continues Below“For us, that’s our defensive intensity, how we compete on that end, transition defense and our individual defense, and getting out and running,” Walton said. “We’re starting to fall in love with the jump shot, which is not the strength of our team.”
As statistically the worst free-throw shooting team in the NBA at a dismal 70.5 percent through 19 games, Walton was actually impressed with the Lakers' recent progression at the charity stripe.
“We've been doing a ton of free-throw shooting in practice the last couple days because I think we're just killing our chances of winning with the percentage we're shooting from the free-throw line, and guys are hitting them,” Walton said.
Turnovers continue to kill the Lakers this season with 16.8 committed per game as a team, which is second-worst in the NBA behind the Philadelphia 76ers.
“We keep pointing [transition turnovers] out. We're aware of it. We show it in video so the guys can see the points that we're leaving out here, then we come out here and we drill,” Walton said. “We do fast break drills, which is a lot easier when you got four days without a game. When you play every other night it's tough to justify doing that.”
The Lakers will be the road team on Monday night at Staples Center when they face the L.A. Clippers, who have won two straight games after previously losing nine in a row.
