On their critical times this time around against the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham opted to shelf Russell Westbroom for their final three possessions. But the Lakers, for the third-straight game, eventually dropped again and now at the bottom part of the West standings.
Prior to Westbrook’s exit, Los Angeles had miserable sequences down the stretch, and Ham can only do a defensive stance regarding his decision to call out the embattled star to sit on the sidelines.
“We don’t have time for feelings or people being in their feelings. Like, we’re trying to turn this thing around,” Ham said, per ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “For one person to be in their feelings about when and where and how they should be in the game, I don’t have any time for that.”
At the 4:42 mark of the last period, the Lakers were still riding an eight-point margin. Ham took a shuffle and inserted Westbrook to the court.
Things then went disastrous down the line, as the Blazers climbed up and outscored L.A. by 10 points before the rookie mentor decided to pull Westbrook away with over 12 seconds left on the Sunday match.
During that stretch, the devastated Crypto.com Arena crowd can only groan after Westbrook attempted a quick, uncontested pull-up jumper with 27.3 seconds remaining in the game and 18 seconds left on the shot clock while leading by one, 102-101. The former league MVP wasn’t able to convert a bucket, which gave the Blazers a clear pathway to complete a comeback win behind the heroics of Damian Lillard and Jerami Grant.
For Ham, Westbrook could have taken a much better offensive shot to seal the game at that possession.
“I just wish we would’ve attacked the rim directly,” Ham said. “That’s the one shot that teams want you to take and want to give up — long 2s, contested 2s, what have you.
“And with his ability to explode and get to the basket still being at a high level, I wish he would’ve did that. Especially with (Jusuf) Nurkic standing back there with five fouls.”
