Lakers more than ready for the comforts of home – Orange County Register

The text message hit home, literally, for Anthony Davis.

“My wife texted me, ‘I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,’” Davis said.

Maybe not forever, but for Davis and the rest of the Lakers, the past 29 days have been a long road home. During that span, the Laker have played 11 games in 25 days away from Crypto.com Arena and their families.

Starting with Wednesday’s game against the Miami Heat, the Lakers enjoy an extended stay at home with 11 of their next 12 games in Los Angeles. One of those games is an “away” game against the Clippers on Jan. 23.

“It’s part of the NBA, but now we get all of January to make up ground and be home,” Davis said.

Staying put for a while will allow the Lakers the opportunity to figure out what ails them, literally and figuratively. They are beaten up, with four rotation players on the injured list, and LeBron James and Davis playing through nagging knee and ankle injuries.

They also haven’t been able to find consistency in winning. The Lakers are 3-8 since the In-Season Tournament championship game and have yet to regain their footing.

“I mean, (being home) helps just in the sense of giving ourselves an opportunity to not have to travel as much,” James said. “It could hurt us in the sense where you start to feel comfortable because you’re at home, so we have to understand that, yes, just because we’re home, we really can’t relax now.

“It definitely feels better being in your own bed, but at the end of the day, we still got to go out and compete because teams are going to come into our building looking to do the same thing that they’ve been doing with us being on the road.”

Davis said the Lakers need to take advantage of their home-heavy schedule this month.

“We get to sleep in our own beds, and don’t have to worry about traveling. Our own resources. Get some practice time in and let guys get healthy,” Davis said. “So, it’s going to be big for us to make this homestand a great one. We got to take advantage of it.”

Coach Darvin Ham sees this stretch of home games as a time to get healthy, first and foremost, and then settle on a starting lineup again.

Ham inserted Rui Hachimura into the starting lineup in Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans for Cam Reddish, who is out because of a groin injury.  His role was short-lived as Hachimura left eight minutes into the game with a calf injury.

He was expected to be further evaluated once the team arrived back home, but the Lakers did not practice during their two off days and did not issue an update on Hachimura.

There also weren’t any updates on D’Angelo Russell, who is considered day to day because of a bruised tailbone, or Reddish. Gabe Vincent, who missed 23 consecutive games because of a knee effusion, returned for one game before his knee swelled.

Vincent, who was seen as a significant piece to the Lakers’ success this season, had arthroscopic surgery Dec. 27 and will be re-evaluated in six to eight weeks.

“We’ve had some unfortunate setbacks in terms of player health over the last, I don’t know, 40-45 days,” Ham said.

“The quicker we can get healthy (the better.) We’ve seen what this team can be and what it’s capable of. We have to just know that each and every day we have to extract the most positive information we can, whether it’s a game day or non-game day, in terms of us getting better with what we have. And as players get back healthy and get back into the fold, we’ll make sure we integrate them the right way. But health is the greatest wealth in our business.”