Los Angeles Lakers head coach Luke Walton wasn't happy about his team's effort during the opening half against the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday. The Clippers had a 30-point lead after the opening two quarters of the match and they were dominating their city rivals. In the end, the Clippers ended up beating the LakeShow without breaking much of a sweat, 133-109.
Benching starting unit
Luke Walton, the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, made a radical move to start the second half. He decided to bench all of his five starters and put in the lineup of five players from the bench.
The coach wanted to ''send a message'' to some of his players that he doesn't want to see a lack of effort on the court.
''A couple of them,'' Walton replied, when asked what message he was hoping to send to the Lakers. ''The most important one was that playing without a certain amount of effort is not going to be acceptable or tolerated. You know, I've been praising (those guys), they've done a great job the last game and a half."
''And all year, you know, obviously we've had a lot of downs. But, to come out in front of our home fans and give out that type of effort wasn't okay, it's not right. So, we went with five guys that we thought that would, you know, play really hard.''
The coach was pleased with that unit's effort
Los Angeles Lakers coach Luke Walton says he was glad with the job that the bench did.
The coach didn't ask much of that unit -- he just wanted them to play hard and compete on the court. Thomas Robinson, who was one of those five guys in that unit, had a great outting. He scored 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field and grabbed six rebounds in just 10 minutes spent on the floor.
''And I thought those guys did a good job,'' Walton confessed.
''Obviously, Thomas Robinson was great. But those guys, you know, they don't play a lot together -- so there wasn't a lot to do offensively with the playcalls. But, they competed and they were playing even basketball for the six minutes they played on effort alone. So, we wanted to get that message across.''
Full interview:
