Lakers News: Darvin Ham Assumes Blame For Rudderless Pacers Loss
First-year Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham spoke with gathered reporters following his team's 116-115 surprise loss to the Indiana Pacers on Monday night.
The team had built up its lead to 17 points early in the fourth quarter, before letting the Pacers back into the game. Rookie reserve point guard Andrew Nembhard nailed a buzzer-beating three-pointer to put his team up by a single point to secure the victory.
"I think us not taking advantage in terms of continue to play downhill, play with force, continue to move the ball" contributed to the loss in a big way, Ham said. "It's just one of those things. You get a lead like that, the free-throw line allows you to maintain your lead, and I wish we would've been a lot more aggressive, continued playing with pace, and also continue to be organized and move the ball. That falls on me. I'll take responsibility for that. And then also late in the game, just giving up offensive rebounds. It's been something that has plagued us the last couple of games."
"Indiana is a really good team, a team with shooters everywhere, and you can't allow them to get second or third chances at open looks," Ham said. "Once they miss, it's a lot of long rebounds, you've got to have active hands and feet to go corral them... I have to do a better job of keeping us organized during those stretches offensively."
When asked about the fact that the Lakers once again failed to feed Anthony Davis in the fourth quarter, with the team's best player only getting two touches down the home stretch. "They were blitzing on the post, they weren't letting us post up. They started to blitz the pick-and-roll," Ham said. "So you have to navigate all of that and just try to execute the best way possible... We'll go back and look at it on film."
