The hope, of course, would be that the time back in Los Angeles would do the Lakers some good. Their coach implored his team that the excuses of the past month — so many of which were valid — needed to end. That the team had to play “consciously competitive consistently” — an alliterative mouthful that Darvin Ham later edited down.
“Flat-out playing hard,” he said pregame Wednesday.
With the Lakers starting their January at home, where they’ll be basically for the entire month, effort wasn’t an issue.
But execution?
They got so little of that right.