LOS ANGELES – The struggles continued for the Los Angeles Lakers as they fell to the Charlotte Hornets, 135-117 on Thursday. With the loss, the Lakers have now dropped eight of their last 13 games. And the Lakers’ schedule does not get any easier with nine of their next 10 games on the road. Their lone home game for the rest of the month is this Sunday against the Toronto Raptors. But even with a tough schedule, Marcus Smart has full confidence that the Lakers can get through it.
Following the Lakers’ loss to the Hornets, Marcus Smart affirmed his belief that the team already has what they need to turn things around and finish out the month strong.
“For us, the schedule is a little bit chaotic right now. Everybody’s going to go through it at some point in the season,” Smart said after the loss to the Hornets. “We got to figure it out. Nobody is gonna come save us, but we don’t need anybody to come save us. We got enough of what we got here. We just got to dig down. . .and try to play our game.”
The Lakers showed a glimpse of the type of effort they need during their win against the Atlanta Hawks earlier this week. After a back-and-forth first quarter, they pulled away and dominated the rest of the game. Against the Hornets, the Lakers came out strong, firing on all cylinders. But they were thoroughly outplayed by the Hornets the rest of the way.
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“We started off the game pretty good, physicality-wise and everything. We started missing shots and they started hitting some tough ones. . .we kind of allowed that to determine how we were going to play,” Smart said. “If you’re the defensive team when they’re hitting those shots, if you’re not being aggressive and keeping that same urgency, then things can start to get ugly, and that’s what happened for us.”
Even with the tough shots that started to fall, the Lakers were still within striking distance, down 109-103 at the nine minute mark of the fourth quarter. But the Hornets responded with a 9-0 run that essentially ended the game. LaMelo Ball stamped the exclamation point with a pair of dagger 3-point shots late in the final period.
The Lakers now face another back-to-back situation, heading up north to face the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday before returning home against the Toronto Raptors on Sunday.