LOS ANGELES – After defeating the Toronto Raptors at home on Sunday, 110-93, the Los Angeles Lakers will embark on an eight-game road trip, their longest of the season. The next time they will see their home court is Feb. 5. It’s a tough schedule for the Lakers, precipitated by the annual Grammy Awards. It’s not ideal, but as Lakers’ star Luka Doncic put it, it’s just something the team has to deal with.
Following the Lakers’ win against the Raptors, Luka Doncic spoke about how the grueling schedule away from home is part of the job.
“We get paid to do this,” Doncic said. “It’s not gonna be an excuse. It’s gonna be a lot of traveling, but we get paid to do this, and I love it.”
On this road trip, three of the Lakers’ nine games will be against teams over .500 in the Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks. Another of those teams, the LA Clippers, have been the hottest team in the league, having won 12 of their last 15 games. But even with a couple of games against likely lottery teams, no game is going to be easy.
At the official halfway point of the season with the Lakers having played exactly 41 games, they have nearly identical home and road records. They are 13-8 on the road and 12-8 at home. With each of these upcoming nine games, the Lakers have don’t have any sets of back-to-backs, but they do have only a single day rest in between each game.
For Lakers head coach JJ Redick, the compressed schedule is somewhat of a result of the league’s NBA Cup schedule.
“I’m not blaming anything, but this in-season tournament cup, with this break, has just created a very imbalanced cadence of games,” Redick said. “Outside of All-Star break, I think our next two-day break between games is the end of March or something like that. So you kind of have no choice but to prioritize the rest and recovery.”
The Lakers health was a little better on Sunday as Doncic, Deandre Ayton and Jaxson Hayes all made their return to the lineup, allowing Redick to lengthen the rotation to keep players fresh. But Doncic’s injury issues are going to be something to monitor during the trip. Following the win against the Raptors, Doncic acknowledged that it’s just something he has to play through for now.
“It’s okay, not bad,” Doncic said. “Obviously I’ll try to play through it.”
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