Los Angeles Lakers talisman LeBron James stated they can not afford to make any mistakes as they don’t have their full strength squad at their disposal. The Lakers suffered a 116-111 loss against the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night.
Once again the Lakers have injury woes in their squad as Anthony Davis is out of action. Furthermore, Lonnie Walker IV (knee) and Austin Reaves (hamstring) are on the sidelines.
The Lakers have managed a solitary win in their last five matches and they need to come up with a collective show in the upcoming matches to return to winning momentum.
“We are limited with bodies,” James said. “So until some of our big guys or some of our key guys get back … we got to continue to play how we’ve played the last couple games. Play mistake-free basketball.”
Meanwhile, the onus on LeBron James’ shoulders is immense and the team’s head coach wants to manage his workload with guile.
“I feel bad about that,” Ham said. “He’s playing at an amazing level, but we can’t run him in the ground. That was one of my main goals coming into the season. Thirty-six and a half [minutes] the other night. We just have to manage him and have clarity in terms of scaling back his minutes some.”
Ham feels the players are giving their best for the desired results but it hasn’t been easy for them because of injury troubles.
“I still feel wholeheartedly that, at some point, we’re going to break all the way through,” Ham said. “We’re competing, in my opinion, at a very high level. We’ve got guys that we’re trying to mix and match due to injury. So, trying to find out what collection of players down the stretch that you can go with is challenging. But guys are doing their part.”
The Lakers will next take on Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night.
