The Lakers extended their winning streak to five games by defeating the Kings in a high scoring game (136-134).
Four players scored 23 or more points for the winners, LeBron James being the top scorer with 37 points. Apart from James, Dennis Schroder, Thomas Bryant and Russell Westbrook, nobody scored more than 6 points.
Lakers head coach Darvin Ham compared the way his team is playing now to how it was playing earlier in the season.
“Again, trending for the right direction, learning from our mistakes,” he said. “Couple of months back we would’ve lost a game like this. And back then sitting here with you guys during the postgame pressers just telling you guys as much as it hurts, we need to go through this process, we need to learn. It’s trial by fire.
“I think just all those experiences is causing us to be more coinscience on offense, not just throwing away possessions late in the game, being deliberate, knowing who we want the ball to go to, knowing what actions we want to get into, knowing the combination of players we want involved in the actions.
“And the same defensively. Really digging into our matchups and switching them up at times to try to create some indecision by the opponent. At the end of day, everything we’ve gone through up to this point this season has been a huge education for us to trend in the right direction here currently.”
In spite of the winning streak, the Lakers remain outside the play-in zone. Currently, they are 12th in the Western Conference.
