DALLAS — The Lakers have gone through a similar pattern as they near the season’s midway point – one they have hopes of ending during their upcoming homestand.
They’ll have a stretch of performing at the high level coach JJ Redick and the players envision they can consistently, followed by a momentum-halting poor play.
This trend was on display during their winless two-game Texas road trip.
They lost to the Houston Rockets 119-115 on Sunday, after trailing by 22 after struggling to keep the Rockets off the offensive glass, and were defeated by the Dallas Mavericks 118-97 on Tuesday, despite the Mavericks being without their All-Star duo of Luka Dončić (calf) and Kyrie Irving (back) and backup big man Daniel Gafford.
“I mean, it sucks, obviously,” LeBron James said Tuesday. “Especially knowing where we were and how well we’ve been playing.”
The Lakers had won eight of 11 games entering the brief Texas trip – a stretch that was kicked off with one of their most impressive victories of the season against the Memphis Grizzlies on Dec. 15 and ended with one of their most well-rounded performances in Friday’s home win over the Atlanta Hawks.
“We do a good job of not getting too high or too low emotionally,” guard Max Christie said. “It’s a big message we had at the end of the game [on Tuesday]. Just trying to stay the course. We’ve turned our season around since that Miami game [on Dec. 4]. We’ve been really connected and we’ve done a pretty good job.
“So we’re not going to let [Tuesday’s] loss be the end-all, be-all for us. We’re going to get better from this.”
The Lakers will have as good as an opportunity as they’ll get to put together a strong stretch of play – and possibly get healthier – during the next couple of weeks.
They’ll play seven of their next eight games at their home arena and all eight in Southern California, including their debut at the Intuit Dome against the Clippers on Jan. 19, starting with Thursday’s home game against the Charlotte Hornets.
They won’t have any back-to-backs over the next two weeks, providing more opportunities for practices and shootarounds.
The Lakers have only practiced once – on Dec. 30 – since acquiring Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets for D’Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis and three second-round draft picks on Dec. 29.
Finney-Smith and Milton didn’t participate in that practice as they awaited the physicals for all players involved in the trade to be approved.
“We’ll get on the court together, that’s better than nothing,” Finney-Smith said. “When we get two weeks [at] home, we definitely got to take advantage of that and get some wins. We felt like we should have won this road trip, but we didn’t, so we got to fight and get wins at home.”
Jarred Vanderbilt, who played just 29 games last season and hasn’t played this season after having surgery on his feet in May, has advanced to full-court activities with contact and will be reevaluated during the homestand in about one week.
The defensive-minded forward played five-on-five against coaches Monday. The team wants Vanderbilt to play “a few runs” against other players – his Lakers teammates or players from the organization’s South Bay G League affiliate – before he is cleared to return to the lineup.
The Lakers said on Dec. 3 that Vanderbilt was targeting a return for early January.
It isn’t known if Vanderbilt will return during this home stretch, but there are encouraging signs that his return is imminent.
WILDFIRE EFFECTS
Redick said that his family was among several who had to evacuate their homes on Tuesday in light of the wildfires that spread throughout Los Angeles County.
“I just want to acknowledge and send thoughts and prayers to everyone in the Palisades right now – it’s where I live,” Redick said on Tuesday. “My family and my wife’s family, my wife’s twin sister, they’ve evacuated. I know that a lot of people are freaking out, including my family. And from the sound of things with the winds coming, I know a lot of people are scared. So I just want to acknowledge that. Thoughts and prayers, for sure. I hope everybody stays safe.”
James posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Wednesday morning: “Praying for everyone in Southern California!! !”
The NHL postponed Wednesday night’s Kings-Calgary Flames game that was scheduled to be played at Crypto.com Arena – the same arena the Lakers are scheduled to host the Hornets on Thursday.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Lakers-Hornets matchup was still scheduled to tip off at its original time on Thursday.
HORNETS AT LAKERS
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM