Lakers News: Why LA Is Struggling To Beat Rest Of West

Your Los Angeles Lakers have had their spurts of good runs this season. At times, they look like a playoff team and a team no one wants to face in the playoffs. And other nights, they look like the team we saw at the beginning of the season. They are playing inconsistent basketball and not playing with the hunger they need to in order to make the postseason.

It's been a roller coaster of a season, and we're almost at the end of the ride. The only question is, are the Lakers making the playoffs, or will this ride end with us throwing up? That remains a question, with 11 games remaining as of Sunday.

Still, LA controls their own destiny in a way if they can figure out to win more times than not, especially against Western conference teams. Why are they unable to not get over the hump? LA insider and The OC Register writer Kyle Goon may have provided some answers.

"Injury is a consistent theme up and down the standings race: The Lakers are without James, but Phoenix’s Kevin Durant, Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and New Orleans’ Zion Williamson have been spotty or missed huge stretches. The Mavericks themselves have played several games without Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, but both stars practiced on Thursday, Coach Jason Kidd said."

Unfortunately, injuries have been a constant theme for the purple and gold these past three seasons. Anthony Davis and LeBron James have missed extended time, and the Lakers have had trouble getting their groove with their star players missing a ton of time.

The Western Conference is usually the most dominant conference of the two, but this season has been an anomaly. The Eastern conference is top-heavy and has teams with better records than the West.

Goon writes that the pressure of performing down the stretch possibly has gotten to LA.

"But pressure can do funny things to teams, even hot ones. And it’s clear the Lakers are feeling some. They’re fortunate in that eight of their last 12 games will be played in the confines of Crypto.com Arena, but they’re not feeling any crutches – or room for error."

No matter what, the Lakers need to figure that out, and Lakers role player Jarred Vanderbilt realizes that.

“'We’re running out of time,' forward Jarred Vanderbilt said. 'I mean I know we got 12 games left? We have no more freebies. We never had none to begin with. We need all these games. We need to win as much as possible, especially ones like tonight against teams that aren’t even fighting for playoff position – especially Western Conference teams. So we need to win those games.'”

No more excuses; the Lakers need to go on a stretch of winning games and look like a playoff team. Time is not on LA's side, so they must do what they can to rack up the wins. It's do-or-die time.

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