Your 18-19 Los Angeles Lakers are finally back on the winning side of things. The Purple and Gold ended their four-game losing streak on Sunday when they defeated their crosstown rival, the Los Angeles Clippers, 106-103.
The Lakers looked like the Lakers of the in-season tournament, and they needed to beat the red-hot Clippers.
It felt good to win, but seeing the others chip in and do their job felt better. One player who made his presence felt was backup big man Christian Wood.
Wood caught up with the Lakers' radio team after the game and spoke about what went well for him and his team in the win.
"Just playing hard doing the little things that my team needs," Wood said. "These guys are instilling confidence in me to score. I think early in the season, they more so needed my help side defense and my rebounding, and now they’re just imploring me to go out there to score, so just them guys, instilling confidence in me to go do the little things and score the ball."
In only 16 minutes, Wood made his presence felt, scoring nine points and grabbing ten boards. Wood was one of four players on the Lakers to score in double digits, and he came up huge on both sides of the ball.
After a handful of DNPs in the past couple of games, Wood has shown that he deserves to be a vital rotation piece. I find it hard not to give him some critical minutes, but you never know with head coach Darvin Ham.
The big man made his case for critical minutes, and he has earned it until proven otherwise. Hopefully, this is the start of something great for the purple and gold as they look to build a winning streak from here on out.
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