Here’s an idea for the flailing Lakers: try Plan A
Uh-oh, LeBron James is unhappy.
A king’s silence-speaks-volumes kind of peeved.
Because the Lakers star exited the locker room after Wednesday night’s frustrating 110-96 loss to the Miami Heat without uttering a word about it.
Which said a lot. Might as well have been a big ol’ bat signal to his team, cutting through the darkness: Fix this.
And soon. Like, now. As in, this month. This moment that’s ripe for the Lakers to get right, to rediscover their identity, get back in touch with the team that reached the Western Conference
Today: Grizzlies at Lakers, 7 p.m., SPSN, ESPN
finals a season ago but that is, confoundingly, just 1718 this season despite having its two stars play together in all but five games.
“There’s a lot of time left,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham told reporters Wednesday, when his team shot atrociously — 4 for 30 from 3-point range — and also turned over the ball 21 times, gift-wrapping 22 points for the Heat. “But the time is precious.”
On this, he’s wrong and he’s right: There’s a lot of time left, and it precious.
Because this is supposed to be the soft spot on the schedule. After spending 25 of the past 29 days on the road, the Lakers are home for 10 of their 15 games this month, and facing the eighth-easiest schedule in that span, per positiveresidual.com.
It’s now or it’s not happening. No excuses. No more just-waittill-we-get-Gabe Vincent-back talk. Because none of the NBA’s other teams — all of whom have their own personnel issues — are sorry about the Lakers’ role players’ injuries.
And they’re certainly not sorry about the consternation building around a team that brought back the capable core that, as assembled, has proved itself capable of winning big games in the playoffs.
A group that has proved it can win big games in-season too, storming to the inaugural NBA