Through team struggles, Lakers Coach Luke Walton hasn’t considered changing starters

During the past two months, a difficult stretch for the Lakers, they’ve remained steady with one thing: injuries aside, their preferred starting lineup hasn’t changed.

And it won’t any time soon.

Lakers Coach Luke Walton hasn’t considered a change to that group.

“I like guys getting chemistry, playing together,” Walton said. “I think the starting lineup’s actually been doing a pretty good job. [In] most games, we’ve gotten off to pretty good starts now. That was a problem early on, but I think they’ve figured that out. Now a lot of the problem is to start the third quarter. So I guess if we’re making baby steps and progression, we’ll get to the third quarter next. But I think the starting group’s been pretty solid for the most part recently.”

Since the start of the season, the Lakers have had Luol Deng, Julius Randle, Timofey Mozgov, D’Angelo Russell and Nick Young as their starting five. All of them have missed at least one game due to injury, and Deng was rested against the Clippers on Saturday.

Early in the season, as the Lakers raced to a surprising 10-10 start, the starting group was still learning to work together and often being outplayed by the second unit. The Lakers frequently found themselves in deep deficits, but often were able to bounce out of them.

Since then the Lakers have gone 5-20, but their starts have improved significantly. It’s those pesky third quarters that have become the new problem.

“It’s the same combination that starts the game that plays a lot of minutes together [in the third quarter],” Walton said. “I’m not sure why we come out flat, but that’s something we continue to address.”

tania.ganguli@latimes.com

Follow Tania Ganguli on Twitter @taniaganguli

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