Somehow, the Lakers’ resident tough guy is also their resident optimist.
Markieff Morris didn’t let a smile drop for his entire press conference on Wednesday night despite all available evidence that the Lakers (30-18) are in a low ebb. Their hold on fourth place in the Western Conference slipped after the loss to Milwaukee, and the anticipated debut of center Andre Drummond was stamped out when Brook Lopez landed on his toe.
But Morris, one of the returning title winners with a gruff, Philly-bred exterior, refused to acknowledge that the Lakers are feeling anything but confident in the bigger picture. All-Stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis will be back, he pointed out, and at full strength, his team can contend with anyone.
“We’re not worried about the big toe: It just lines up for a great ending,” he said. “A great ride off into the sunset, championship win again.”
That sunny attitude has been tested since James was injured on March 20. The Lakers have gone 2-5, and statistics paint them as one of the league’s struggling teams. While they have maintained a strong defensive presence (104.8 defensive rating, fourth over their last seven games), they’re the only NBA team to average fewer than a point per possession during that same stretch (99.0 offensive rating). They’re averaging a league-high 17 turnovers and shooting just 31 percent from 3-point range, which is the third-lowest in the NBA.
It’s been dire. And the challenges only continue to mount with the upcoming schedule – especially after the Lakers announced that Drummond did not travel with the team for Friday’s game in Sacramento. He could return as soon as Sunday afternoon against the Clippers. Wesley Matthews is also questionable with a neck bruise after taking a hit from Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Coach Frank Vogel said he would keep the group focused, including showing them positive film clips from their strong points against the Bucks before Drummond was hurt and things started to roll downhill.
“There’s always positives in the film, it’s very instructional,” he said. “Defensive, not mistakes, but things we can do better. The right way to play offensively, we can do this possession after possession after possession and we see the type of shots that we generate. And we believe in that type of action so this group’s gonna continue to believe.”
Belief has its limits, however, especially in the Western Conference. Entering Thursday, the Lakers had just a half-game lead on Portland and Denver, with the Nuggets in position to possibly pass them against the short-handed Clippers on Thursday night. While a fall all the way out of the playoffs with an eight-game lead on 11th-place Sacramento seems highly unlikely with just 24 games left, improving Dallas, currently in seventh place, is in arm’s reach just four games back.
The Lakers are only at the start of a seven-game road trip, tied for the season’s longest trek, that will pit them against the Clippers, Miami Heat, Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks and Charlotte Hornets among teams that are currently slated to make the playoffs. If James and Davis continue to miss time beyond that, there’s more pain, including a pair of home games against the league-leading Utah Jazz and two road games against the Mavericks.
The Lakers might well still be the best team at full strength, sporting a 17-6 record when James and Davis play this season. But at this point, the Lakers have played more games without Davis than with him, and he’s yet to be cleared to resume practice. James is still in a walking boot, watching games from home so he can stay off his meddlesome right ankle. The compressed nature of the 72-game schedule means they’re missing more games than they would in a normally-paced season.
It might be a small consolation that the Lakers have prepped a playoff run with only a short runway before, playing eight regular-season games in the bubble before their 2020 title run. But the lower their seed, the harder their path to a repeat could get, even if they manage to steer clear of the play-in games (which is double-elimination for the seventh and eighth seeds, and single-elimination for Nos. 9 and 10).
If you’re looking for desperation, look elsewhere, Morris said.
“We know what we capable of,” he said. “We know that this was a quick turnaround from winning a championship last year, so nobody got any rest, and we know our two top guys are down right now, but we know they coming back well-rested. That’s gonna be real big for us.
He smirked: “I hope everybody else know that.”
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