Darvin Ham says win over Pelicans ‘revealed a lot’ about Lakers heading into playoffs https://t.co/3mWFzLw4ri
— LakerTom (@LakerTom) April 18, 2024
After the game, head coach Darvin Ham discussed his biggest takeaways after such a hard-fought win.
“Just the grit,” Ham said. “The grit of our group. Had a little bit of a cushion, they start making…their run, threw some heavy blows at us. We kept fighting back. Meet force with force. Blessing to Willie and his staff, his crew. That’s a hard, hard ball club to play. Their length, their athleticism, their skill, their ability to shoot the ball, Zion and his nonstop relentlessness and attacking downhill.
That’s a hell of a team we just got past. But it revealed a lot about us and what we’re made of. The way these two games went, one was a fairly big cushion throughout the game and then tonight was hard fought, as we anticipated. I’m just proud of our guys just doing the little things; taking charges, whether it was Bron or different people taking charges, coming up with big defensive rebounds, D’Lo getting back, sprinting back, coming up with a huge steal late, hitting a huge bucket in front of their bench to go up four. Guys stepping up making their free throws, it was a lot. A lot. We had some point blank shots that we missed that we normally make but we didn’t hang our heads. We just kept fighting.”
The team has been playing well and has looked like a championship team for the one month or so. What I really liked about the last game against the Pelicans was seeing how they approached the free-throw line with calm and poise when shooting the free-throws. It’s been a while since I saw that in the Lakers.