In the wake of a four-game losing streak, Lakers coach Darvin Ham made a change to his starting lineup for tonight’s game at Oklahoma City, writes Khobi Price of The Orange County Register. Ham replaced D’Angelo Russell with Jarred Vanderbilt, giving L.A. a super-sized lineup with all the starters standing at least 6’6″.
Vanderbilt, who missed the first 20 games with inflammation in his left heel, is making his first start of the season. He admitted earlier this week that the heel is still “naturally limiting” what he’s able to do, but he told Price at Saturday’s shootaround that he feels ready to play expanded minutes.
“Physically I feel good,” Vanderbilt said. “It’s been in a few games now, so I’ve been able to try to get some rhythm and kind of catch a routine of how this year is gonna go as far as me physically and my body and maintaining throughout the season. I think I’m physically ready.”
Ham said after Wednesday’s loss at Chicago that lineup changes are “always an option,” Price adds. With the Lakers skidding after the in-season tournament and falling back to .500 for the season, Ham decided the time was right and made the move to place a greater emphasis on defense.
“When you play great defense, it makes the offense a little bit easier,” he explained. “And so just wanted to lean into that side of the ball. Obviously, we’ve been struggling in a lot of first quarters this season so we feel like being a little bit bigger on the perimeter, more athletic gives us a chance to really have this go in our favor this time.”
There’s more from the Pacific Division:
- Clippers coach Tyronn Lue doesn’t want to let two lopsided losses kill the momentum his team built up earlier this month, per Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times. L.A. surrendered 145 points, its highest total of the season, while falling to Boston Saturday in a game that was out of reach by the middle of the third quarter. Combined with Thursday’s loss at Oklahoma City, it represents a rough spot for a team that had been climbing up the Western Conference standings. “We told our team after the game, these last two games, don’t let it discourage what we’ve built and what we’ve been doing over the last three, four weeks,” Lue said.
- De’Aaron Fox moved past Mike Bibby Friday night to become the Kings‘ career leader in assists since they moved to Sacramento, per Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. “He’s just getting started,” coach Mike Brown said. “I think the guy is 25, 26, something like that, and he’s already broken that record. There’s going to be a lot of records that go down during his time here.”
- Suns guard Bradley Beal talks to Marc J. Spears of Andscape about his frustrating battle with injuries and how it has played into the team’s disappointing start.