With LeBron James out for multiple games due to a groin injury, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Luke Walton emphasized the importance of the upcoming stretch of games.

Walton says that his team has the same mindset for every single game. For him, the goal is to win as many games as they can and learn lessons from it. However, he did not downplay the absence of James, especially in the coming games where he's expected to be out. Per Dave McMenamin of ESPN:

“The way we look at it, it's every game's the same, it's us getting better and us trying to win our games,” Walton said. “So this stretch is going to be really important to us. But as far as this specific game, no. But this stretch of games coming up, yeah, this is a big stretch for us, for sure.”

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There's no specific timetable yet as to how many games James will miss. The Lakers simply listed him as “day-to-day.” But no matter how many games he misses, it will still be interesting to see how the Lakers' young guns will operate without their leader.

Those young players acquitted themselves nicely for most of Thursday night's game against the Sacramento Kings. Kyle Kuzma had a monster game with 33 points, while Lonzo Ball just missed a triple-double with 20 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds.

Unfortunately, the Lakers couldn't close out the Kings and blew a 15-point fourth-quarter lead to lose 117-116 on a Bogdan Bogdanovic buzzer-beater. This loss will be something to learn from as the youngsters develop without LeBron in the lineup.