Inconsistent Los Angeles Lakers hope to get it right against lowly Washington Wizards

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers are in a rut in which they have dropped four of their past six National Basketball Association (NBA) games, but things could get better when the Washington Wizards visit the Crypto.com Arena on Jan 21 (Jan 22, Singapore time).

Washington have lost 10 games in a row and won an NBA-low six this season, with their last win coming on Jan 1.

They are also in the third contest of a six-game road trip. Back-to-back losses to start the trip made the Wizards fall to 1-17 away from home. So it seems like good timing for the Lakers, who are 22-18 overall but experiencing consistency issues.

“Nothing is going to be easy for our team, and I figured that out very early in the season. And that’s OK. We’re going to keep fighting... We have 18 losses, so by the loss column, we’re sixth. We would like to be higher,” said LA coach J.J. Redick.

“I think there’s a couple games where we would all say we should have won. We haven’t had any of those games where you’re like, ‘Well, we kind of stole that one’.

“We’re going to get a couple back at some point. We just got to continue to trust each other and we’ll be fine.”

Redick’s comments came after the 116-102 loss to hosts Los Angeles Clippers on Jan 19. The Lakers trailed by as many as 26 points and scored fewer than 30 points in every quarter.

Lakers star forward LeBron James said that the team have a thin margin of error due to their roster. He said they have to play at a high level to have a chance of winning.

“We don’t have a choice. That’s the way our team is constructed and we have to – we have to play close-to-perfect basketball,” he said.

James had 25 points and 11 assists against the Clippers, but also committed five turnovers. Anthony Davis had 16 points and 10 rebounds, but made just five of 14 shots against the Clippers. He missed the previous game due to a foot injury.

The Wizards were routed 123-100 by the Sacramento Kings on Jan 19, allowing 120 points or more for the sixth consecutive game.

Washington also were not good on offence, as they shot 36 per cent from the field and a wobbly 10 of 42 from three-point range.

“We didn’t play well at all. Offensively, felt like we were all over the place. Defensively, we weren’t very good,” Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma said.

Kuzma’s name is floating around in trade rumours with Washington struggling. Last season, he was nearly traded to the Dallas Mavericks before the trade deadline but told the organisation that he preferred to stay put.

This time around, Kuzma is more open to being dealt.

“We’ll see how it goes, I don’t know. I think last year was the right time (to stay) after signing the deal. That was kind of more of a last-year thing,” Kuzma said.

“We haven’t had conversations, haven’t even talked about the deadline, haven’t talked about getting traded. This is really the first time I’m really talking about it.”

Kuzma, 29, is in his fourth season with the Wizards after spending his first four with the Lakers.

He was stellar for Washington the past two seasons with averages of 21.2 points in 2022-23 and a career-best 22.2 last campaign. But this term, he is averaging just 14.4 points and is posting career shooting lows of 42.5 per cent from the field and 25.7 per cent from three-point range.

This is the first of two meetings between the teams this season. Los Angeles have won the past four encounters. REUTERS