Lakers Complete Season Sweep Of Hawks 94-109

The Los Angeles Lakers host the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday in a matchup of two teams who have been good at times through the season’s first month, but now are struggling.

On Sunday, the former Laker returned to the Staples Center with his new team, the Atlanta Hawks, only to find out that he isn’t as missed in the city as he may have thought. He had the bulk of that in the second quarter notching 12 points that helped the Lakers completely erase an 11-point deficit.

The Lakers’ bench averaged an NBA-best 51.2 points per game entering Sunday, and they topped that figure by producing 65 against the Hawks, whose bench scored 24. “He has hit shots when we need it”.

Starting point guard D’Angelo Russell is also gone for a couple of weeks due to an injury.

As this 16-time champion team getting back its thing together, Los Angeles Lakers got its three key players tapped out for a few games because of the black cat of the National Basketball Association, injuries. Their 94 points were the fewest the Lakers have allowed in a home game this season.

Clarkson provided some offensive firepower as well, pouring in 18 points to go along with four rebounds and five assists. But Walton opted to start Jordan Clarkson instead.

The Lakers were aggressive the entire game and played with a lot of energy.

“There are so many different things they do well”, Walton said. “I had a couple of them in Golden State and it was fun”, said Lakers coach Luke Walton, a Warriors assistant the previous two years.

It’s something that Walton believes come from the team buying into the game plan and ideology.

“We give ourselves up for each other”, said Black, the center on the Lakers’ second unit. As coaches we’ll look bigger picture than that as far as minutes and how much certain guys are playing.

It might take long into the winter for the Lakers to be fully healthy, but they will remain competitive regardless.

The margins were razor thin: First-year coach Luke Walton would have to see immediate results, young players would need to improve by enormous leaps and, most of all, the Lakers could not, under any circumstances, suffer injuries. “We’re trying to fight for the playoffs or we’re trying to fight for seeding, and I’m not there because I didn’t take care of a nagging injury 20 games into the season”.

“I think we just got five guys that’s learning how to play well together”, Williams said. Atlanta made its third stop on a five-game road trip.

Bob Garcia IV is a sports journalist from Southern California.