Another poor exhibition by Lakers

There are a handful of reasons for exhibition games.

Get players in shape. See what schemes need work. Make a few extra bucks at the ticket office. Hope nobody gets hurt.

For the Lakers, though, it has been a historic October for not-so-pleasant reasons.

They got drilled again in another exhibition, 119-86, against Utah in front of a sparse Honda Center crowd.

The Lakers have now experienced their worst two-game stretch in exhibition history, adding Thursday night to a 41-point loss Sunday to Golden State.

That makes consecutive losses totaling 74 points, easily outdoing their previous exhibition low of 47 points in back-to-back defeats in 2012.

Kobe Bryant scored 27 points and Carlos Boozer had 17, but that was about it for the Lakers, who suddenly can’t make a three-point shot. They’ve gone 11 consecutive quarters without scoring from beyond the arc, missing all five attempts there Thursday.

Rookie Julius Randle was held out of the second half because of the dreaded “coach’s decision” and Steve Nash couldn’t suit up yet again.

Lakers Coach Byron Scott liked one thing about the game.

“That it’s over,” he said.

In defense of the Lakers, they were without Nick Young, Jeremy Lin, Xavier Henry, Ryan Kelly, rookie Jordan Clarkson and Nash, whose case gets more curious every day.

Nash aggravated his back Wednesday while lifting travel bags at home and did not accompany the team to a scheduled event at a casino that night but, surprisingly, told Lakers trainer Gary Vitti on Thursday afternoon he wanted to play against Utah.

So Nash went on the court an hour before the game, shot around for a while and went back to the locker room. He never made it back to the court.

Randle didn’t make it to the second half. He was bothered by blisters on the bottom of his feet but they were a secondary reason for not playing after the second quarter.

Scott said it wasn’t a punishment, but “I still don’t think the last couple of games that he’s played as hard as he can play.”

At least there was Bryant. He made 10 of 23 shots in 28 minutes and showed a few things against Utah.

1) You still can’t leave him wide open. He moved around a solid screen by Jordan Hill and drilled a 17-footer alone on the right side.

2) The pump fake can still work. He got rookie Rodney Hood to bite on one in the first quarter, drawing a foul and converting a three-point play.

3) He can still be a play-maker. He drove past Gordon Hayward, hung in the air for a bit and found Boozer underneath for an easy basket. On another play, he took an offensive rebound and immediately found Boozer underneath for a basket.

4) He also still loves motivation.

He didn’t enjoy being the 25th-best player in ESPN’s annual preseason rankings last season, so he certainly didn’t like being No. 40 this season.

“I’ve known for a long time that they’re a bunch of idiots,” Bryant said. He kind of smiled.

Bryant got some support from his coach.

“I would just hate to be one of the guys that doubted him,” Scott said. “I see where he’s come from to this particular point after the [Achilles] injury and I know he’s going to get stronger. I think he’ll have the last laugh.”

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com