Marcus Smart reaffirms faith in LA amid busy schedule

LOS ANGELES – The the struggles for the Los Angeles Lakers continued as they fell to the Charlotte Hornets, 135-117 on Thursday. With the loss, the Lakers have dropped eight of their last 13 games. And the The Lakers’ schedule doesn’t get any easier with nine of their next 10 away games. Their only home game until the end of the month is this week against the Toronto Raptors. But even with the tough schedule, Marcus Smart has every confidence the Lakers can pull through.

After the Lakers’ loss to the Hornets, Marcus Smart reaffirmed his belief that the team already has what it takes to turn things around and finish the month strong.

“The schedule is a little chaotic for us right now. Everybody’s going to go through that at some point in the season,” Smart said after the loss to the Hornets. “We’ve got to figure it out. Nobody’s going to come save us, but we don’t need nobody to save us. We’ve got enough of what we’ve got here. We’ve just got to dig in… and try to play our game.”

The Lakers showed the effort they need during their win against the Atlanta Hawks earlier this week. After a back-and-forth first quarter, they pulled away and dominated the rest of the game. Against the Hornets, the Lakers came out strong, firing on all cylinders. But the Hornets completely outplayed them the rest of the way.

“We started the game pretty good, physically and everything. We started missing shots and they started hitting some tough ones. . . . we let that dictate how we played,” Smart said. “If you’re a defensive team when they hit those shots, if you’re not aggressive and keep that same urgency, then things can start to get ugly, and that’s what happened to us.”

Even with the tough shots starting to fall, the Lakers were still within 109-103 at the ninth minute of the fourth quarter. But the Hornets responded with a 9-0 run that essentially ended the game. LaMelo Ball exclamation mark with a pair of 3-point daggers in the late finish.

The Lakers now face another back-to-back situation, heading north to face the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday before returning home to face the Toronto Raptors on Sunday.