This is the Lakers’ penultimate road trip, and Rui Hachimura knows the high stakes involved in these games.
The Lakers finished their recent home stand, winning three of their five games, but lost their last two matchups, including an embarrassing loss against the Bulls, to conclude this stint in Los Angeles.
Now, they will begin a four-game road trip, their second to last of the season.
With the Western Conference standings being a log jam and the Lakers right in the mix, Rui Hachimura talked about how important this upcoming slate of games is for the purple and gold.
“We have 10 games or whatever left and the standing are really close to each other from second seed to like sixth seed,” Hachimura said. “We have to lock in again as a team. We have a schedule crazy schedule and all that, but, this road trip is going to be really important for us to get back in our rhythm, back on track. We just got to stick together.”
The Lakers have 12 games left, and while the standings are airtight, they hold the tiebreakers over several teams and will likely gain ground in the standings if they win more than they lose during this road trip.
To accomplish that, the team has to follow up on Hachimura’s words with actions.
That means no more slow starts in the third quarter, defensive concentration on all possessions and bringing the right focus regardless of the opposing team’s win-loss record.
This trip features a back-to-back against the Pacers and Bulls, but it’s much easier than the gauntlet of games they just went through, where they played six times in eight nights.
With everyone relatively healthy and available for this road trip, the Lakers can go on a run here, build chemistry with Luka Dončić and come home to play the Houston Rockets in a game with massive seeding implications.
To ensure that happens, the poor performance that occurred against the Bulls has to be a thing of the past and not a precursor of the future.
The first game of this road trip begins in Orlando against the Magic on Monday. So we’ll know soon enough if this is a serious business trip filled with winning or if the Lakers will continue to waft in the waters of mediocrity.
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