D’Angelo Russell and the Los Angeles Lakers needed some of that offense to carry over to the remainder of their road trip following their thrilling double overtime victory over the Golden State Warriors on Saturday.
Another one-step-forward, two-step-back scenario occurred on Monday night when the Houston Rockets defeated Los Angeles 135-119. Falling behind as much as 30, it appeared to be that energy and exertion from Saturday didn’t interpret, which was frustrating.
Russell battled against the Rockets, shooting 8-for-19 from the field and 3-for-12 from 3-point range and played 41 minutes subsequent to playing 49 on Saturday. He made sense of the intense stretch of playing high minutes during a six-game excursion, through Range SportsNet:
“It is intense. Despite the craziness of our schedule right now, I simply believe that mind over matter. Continue to dig to get one. We need to win on this excursion, win inside and out and not return home with a terrible record, so we need to get it out the mud.”
The smart thing to do for Tuesday’s game would be to rest the starters because things got out of hand against Houston in the third quarter and it was a back-to-back. Yet, Russell and LeBron James played the greater part of the final quarter, slicing the lead to 10. In any case it was a waste of time and Russell examined on the off chance that lead trainer Darvin Ham ought to have pulled them before to prepare for the Atlanta Birds of prey:
“I don’t remember when we were 30 down, but I think around seven or eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, one more push, and that’s usually when you (call it). I feel that is the point at which the choice ought to be made, yet that is on Mentor. Additionally, we have a back-to-back, so I believe it should be done.
It didn’t make sense to play Russell and James a lot of minutes in a double-digit loss, despite a nice run that made things interesting. Although Russell believes that players are being overworked due to the distribution of minutes, that fourth quarter may continue.
“I think it’s kind of hard to keep them out there with a unit with the minutes that guys are playing. Guys, it’s just a little overwhelming. Yet again folks aren’t solid, it compels you to go down much more profound on the seat. However, as I previously stated, that is a coach’s decision, and it is difficult when there are no other options. We did many things today and couldn’t figure out how to answer. We’ll sort it out.”
Throughout the entire season, the lack of consistency has been a theme. L.A. can’t stack wins or steady exhibitions from one game to another. Floating around and beneath .500 with James and Anthony Davis playing essentially every one of the games isn’t great.
D’Angelo Russell fined $15,000 for kicking ball into remains against Heroes
The NBA reported on Monday that they have fined Lakers monitor D’Angelo Russell $15,000 for kicking the game ball into the observer stands, which he did after Stephen Curry missed at the last bell.
