D’Angelo Russell was benched by Lakers coach Darvin Ham in favor of Jarred Vanderbilt and Russell was requested by a reporter about how the demotion dialog went.
“That’s all I got for you,” Russell stated after the Lakers’ 129-120 win over OKC. “I have nothing to add about the conversation. It is what it is. I have no comments or no headlines for you.”
The guard had been struggling not too long ago, so Ham made the choice to demote him and the Lakers had been ready to snap their dropping streak.
He responded by scoring 15 factors off the bench and defined how, so long as the group’s successful, he doesn’t thoughts the place he begins.
“Obviously we switched the lineup and the result was a win, so for me, that’s all that matters, Russell told reporters. “Just finding a way to impact winning and bring energy whenever I’m out on the floor. Starting is a different monster. You’re playing against starting units, you’re playing against the scouting report, you’re playing against a lot of things like that. When you come in [as a reserve] you got to jump back on where the starters left off at as far as matchups and things like that so figuring out ways to find some kind of advantage coming in at a later time.”
The 27-year-old additionally defined that he thinks the trio of himself, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura can do rather a lot on the ground collectively.
“Huge,” Russell stated. “I think any aspect of the game that’s kind of lacking through those runs before we get on the floor, I think we make up for him when Coach [Ham] does those subs with that group. So it’s exciting to see what we can do with is.”
An nearly 39-year-old LeBron James was the star of the present within the Lakers’ win, after he notched a 40-piece.
The swap out of Russell for Vanderbilt allowed James to work at a tempo that suited him on offense.
“We add a lot of length from the perimeter to our wings all the way down to our center,” James instructed Spectrum Sportsnet’s Mike Trudell re having Russell out of the beginning lineup.
