The Los Angeles Lakers have struggled mightily with the Sacramento Kings since Darvin Ham took over as head coach last season. In his tenure, L.A. is 1-6 against their capital city foes, with De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis always providing the Kings with elite output to lift them over the Lakers.
It was only last Wednesday when the Kings defeated the Lakers for the third time in three chances this season behind 44 points from Fox and a 16-point, 20-rebound, 12-assist triple-double from Sabonis. Even when at full strength, the Lakers continue to struggle with the Kings, and given where the two teams are in the standings, that simply cannot happen in their final meeting on Wednesday night.
After the Lakers’ practice on Tuesday, Ham spun the losses against the Kings as a means of improving the Lakers and forcing them to add a skillset that they otherwise wouldn’t have this season.
“They’re a high level team,” Ham said of Sacramento. “The beautiful thing about it, well, losing to them is not beautiful, but when you experience a game against them or any other team that forces you to do something different, it allows you to add something to the war chest and allows you to get better in different areas. The way they play off the ball, their off-ball screens, their speed, their pace, their passing, forces you to be really high level on that side of the ball in those areas. So that gave us a chance to get in here and work on some things, show some things in film and we’ll touch on some more stuff tomorrow.”
The Lakers’ struggles against the Kings look relatively similar to their difficulty with the reigning NBA champion Denver Nuggets. The two teams are built similarly, and Ham went into how that may cause problems for the Lakers.
“It’s something we need to solve and keep working at. Malik coming off the bench is huge for them, you mentioned it with Sabonis and his playmaking ability and passing, playing downhill and through the paint, his physicality. And De’Aaron, what you want to try to give up, he’s the master at it with those midrange 2s, he hits those in his sleep. So definitely we got to be ready to play, the details, really focused and stay consistent with the details.”
But Ham feels that the biggest thing that causes issues for the Lakers is something that only the Kings do and that is the speed at which they run their actions.
“It’s the pace. Whether they’re with the ball, without the ball, the way they play downhill is incredible and that’s how they get you. They collapse the paint and spread it out to their shooters. So definitely being great on the ball, provide some resistance and try to stay in front of them and communicate well off the ball.”
The Lakers sit at No. 9 in the Western Conference standings, two games behind Sacramento at No. 7. A loss on Wednesday with only 15 games remaining in the season would all but ensure the Lakers won’t catch up. But a win would put L.A. in striking distance to not only surpass the Kings and the Dallas Mavericks, but perhaps even the Phoenix Suns at No. 6 as well.
Darvin Ham: Lakers focused on being best version of themselves
Los Angeles suffered a tough loss to the Kings last week, and now will head up north for a pivotal rematch.
Head coach Darvin Ham explained what the Lakers need to do to change the result this time around.
“Again, just regardless of who we’re playing, being the best version of ourselves, Ham said.” “That’s all we’ve been talking about. How great can we be? Obviously, we have to do a little bit of detailed work in terms of preparing for a specific team. But when we’re going out and performing like we know what we’re capable of, we like our chances, to say the least.
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