The road has been long and tough for Lakers, but January brings relief
With the Lakers playing 22 of 33 games on the road this season, Coach Byron Scott says finding time to practice on defense and rebounding has been difficult.
Jordan Clarkson keeps forgetting the number of his hotel room.
It’s not his fault. It’s the schedule.
By the time December ends, the Lakers will have played 22 road games and only 11 at home.
There weren’t many Lakers supporters when the schedule was announced in August.
“When I looked at November and December, I wasn’t happy. This has been a crazy start for us,” Coach Byron Scott said Tuesday after the Lakers won in Denver. “All the time that we’ve spent on the road has been ridiculous.”
Scott was irritated by one thing in particular. As the Lakers bounce from city to city (to city), they don’t practice as long or as often. When they do, it’s usually in unfamiliar facilities.
The Lakers miss El Segundo more than you know.
“When you have a young team, [the schedule] took away the ability for us to have a lot of practices,” Scott said. “That’s the thing that we need. We need to work on our defensive rotations, we need to work on rebounding, we need to work on our offense. When you don’t have the time to do that, it’s going to hurt you.”
The Lakers played eight road games on a 13-day trip to start December. Then they came home for two games and hit the road for two. Now they’re home for two games and will finish the month at Memphis, Charlotte and Boston.
Confused? So are the Lakers.
Only one team has a schedule so far that remotely resembles the Lakers’ trek: Portland (12 home games, 18 away games).
“I don’t think I’ve seen my house in a while,” Clarkson said Tuesday in Denver. “We’ve been in and out of hotels. I don’t even know my room number sometimes.”
He wasn’t quite complaining. More like laughing about it.
“It’s just a grind. It’s what we’re made to do,” he said.
It will all balance out eventually. The Lakers play a mere five road games in January, only two of which are out of state (Utah and Portland).
It can’t come soon enough for them. They’re 3-16 on the road. And tired of it.
Randle volunteered too
After Denver’s Will Barton went off for 23 points in the first half Tuesday, Kobe Bryant took the defensive assignment, holding Barton to just two points through the final two quarters.
Bryant wasn’t the only one who asked Scott for that opportunity.
“I’ll guard him,” said power forward Julius Randle, according to Scott on Wednesday.
Scott was hesitant to put the 6-foot-9 Randle on the 6-6 Barton.
“I said, ‘No, you have to guard Kenneth Faried. We can’t have D’Angelo [Russell] or Jordan try to guard him with you on Barton,’” Scott said.
Instead, Bryant took over, and the Lakers pulled out their fifth victory of the season.
Twitter: Mike_Bresnahan
Times correspondent Eric Pincus contributed to this report.
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