In an overtime thriller, LeBron James revealed his real feelings about the Lakers’ loss to the Sacramento Kings.

“We carried out our plan. We received some amazing looks. They were able to knock down the timely shots that we were unable to.”

With their victory in overtime (OT), the Kings improved to 2-1 on the season. Despite losing De’Aaron Fox to an injury and seeing Domantas Sabonis foul out of the game, they managed to pull off the victory. The former Lakers great Malik Monk came through in the clutch, scoring 22 points in overtime to help his team win. Fox scored an incredible 37 points to lead all scorers.

LeBron exerted every effort to maintain the Lakers’ competitiveness in the latter stages of the game. Before scoring nine late points in the last three minutes of overtime, he made the layup that guaranteed the Lakers would tie the game. He finished with 27 points, 15 rebounds, and 9 assists, but the Lakers were unable to make enough baskets. Despite recording 30 points and 16 rebounds in overtime, Anthony Davis remained quiet.

Taurean Prince’s 20-point shooting night was a waste, as his OT bombs overshadowed his solid performance. Since Austin Reaves began the game on the bench for the majority of the second half, the Lakers’ primary strength was their shooting.

Darvin Ham Is Looking To Improve His Rotations
Lakers coach Darvin Ham was open about his subpar rotations throughout the game after the game.

“We need to take a closer look at my rotation and work it out. I’ll begin by buckling down on our rotation. That’s my primary thought right now.”

Ham kept going back to some confusing rotational choices made by the Lakers. It felt strange to grind out 40 minutes for D’Angelo Russell and give Gabe Vincent 30 minutes without allowing Austin Reaves another opportunity to play. Although Reaves didn’t have a good start, he had a chance late in the game when Vincent was missing shots or misfiring on them.

As the game progressed, Taurean Prince, a 3-and-D forward, was anticipated to contribute significantly more offensively. Even though he can score baskets for you in short bursts, your team’s offense is seriously lacking if he becomes a legitimate scoring option. Another issue was that Christian Wood was 3/3 on attempted shots and could not be effectively incorporated into the late-game rotation.

As a defense-first coach, Coach Ham showed last season that he is capable of designing a defensive scheme that kept the Lakers in games when they were playing poorly and enabled them to go to the Western Conference Finals once they acquired respectable role players. Considering the roster changes, the defensive rhythm will take time to develop. His coaching today was woefully inadequate on both ends.

For the majority of the game and Malik Monk in the latter stages, the Lakers’ defense was at a loss for how to stop De’Aaron Fox. The Lakers have been extremely poor in that regard through the first three games of the season, which is not surprising given Ham’s history of developing a scheme that locked up Stephen Curry in the playoffs.

I hope Ham decides how he wants to use his staff. The expectation was always that the defense would be the cornerstone of the Lakers’ success, even throughout team construction. The Lakers still have 79 long games left to determine what they need, but we haven’t seen that happen yet.