Lakers Coach Darvin Ham Reacts To Game 3 vs Nuggets | May 20, 2023

Could you just speak to the start Jamal Murray got off to them and how that kind of put you guys behind the ball for the rest of the game? Man, he got off scorching. I felt like we were doing a pretty decent job on everyone else. You know, he's one of those players, man. He gets to see it. Once he starts to see them go in, it's just... I mean, he rolls them off pretty quickly, which he did at first half. Basically carried them offensively through that half. But, you know, we did a little better job third quarter, I felt like. But, you know, it's a tough ball club. Shout out to them. They've been at the top of the food chain for a reason. Have a plethora of guys that can hurt you. As we're still on full display tonight. But, you know, circumstances are what they are. Difficult, but not impossible. Just need to come out. You know, start the recovery process now and get ready to get a game on Monday. Jarvin, you guys have spent basically the 80 plus games trying to come back. Like, that's been the story of this team all season. Are you seeing enough energy from this group to still do it? Are you seeing the receipts maybe a little bit from the push your team has had to put into all of this to get to this point? I mean, it's difficult because a lot of it, you know, against the really, really good teams. And, you know, I've seen how our defense, you know, has put people in awkward positions and caused them self-destruct at times, whether it's finishing up the regular season or in these playoffs. And, you know, the defenses, once you get to this point, what's conference finals, finals, the defense gets dialed up that much more. And so you can't have self-inflicted wounds, whether it's turnovers, whether it's giving up offensive rebounds, silly fouls. It helps them get to the bonus quicker. I mean, I just think those things, you got to be extremely, extremely disciplined. And then, you know, you got to have some things fall your way as well. We had a bunch of shots that rimmed out. This is unfortunate. But, again, nobody's going to feel sorry for you. You just got to pick yourself back up and fill our cups back up and try to come out and get one on Monday. Darvin, at times it did feel like the team did take advantage of some of those non-joker minutes between Alston and A.D. Was it just because of that first quarter slump and that Jamal Murray, of course, first half that kind of made it hard to come back from? Yeah, I mean, he got going. I thought we were able to come back and take the lead. They had some men. Give them credit, man. They had some guys step up and make some big shots, you know, Bruce Brown, Jeff, Michael Porter, Jr. Like, yeah, they had some guys that stepped up and played well and, you know, in the absence of Joker. And then once, you know, once he came back, we did what he does. And so, I mean, our biggest thing is, again, us continuously applying pressure, playing downhill, playing in the paint, making a simple play. And sometimes it worked out sometimes. And other times, you know, we had some unfortunate circumstances in terms of turnovers or point-blank miss. Give them a second-chance opportunity. You just got to be more solid. Darvin, pregame I asked you about D-Lo. He won one for eight today, one for six on threes. What did you make of his performance or just kind of the struggles he's had? All good looks. He just has to remain aggressive. All good looks. Darvin, what worked defensively in the second half against Jamal Murray that might not have been working in the first half when he was going? I mean, we just decided to put a body on him and keep a body on him. He was getting loose. We had some miscommunication plays where, you know, one person may have thought we were redding. Another person thought we were staying home. Without me, you know, looking at the game yet, just felt like he took advantage of some of our defensive breakdowns. And, you know, he scores in a variety of ways. It's not like a guy that's going to run 50,000 pick and rolls. And so you can switch up that coverage and be okay. Kind of slow him down. It's pick and roll. It's off balls. It's back doors. It's everything. And so finding him in transition. But us, you know, the adjustment was both Dennis and Vando, I thought, you know, tried their best at slowing him down and disrupt him a little bit in the second half. I thought we were able to do that, you know, 30 in the first half, seven in the second half. But, again, you know, just trying to mix up the pitches, but keep a body on them. And, again, you know, Dennis and Vando, they tried. But he's a hell of a player. And, you know, once he gets rolling, it doesn't matter who's in front of him. Darvin, you guys take the lead in the fourth quarter, and I don't want to be disrespectful. They hit the two good threes. But they went on an 11-0 run. Was that defense? Was that turnovers? What did you see in that short little window? I mean, I thought it was a little bit of everything. I mean, but, again, I have to go back and look at the tape to be 100% sure. But got a couple turnovers, offensive rebounds by them, a couple missed shots by us, point blank, a couple open misses from three. And it's just snowball, snowball effect. Tobin, I had asked you about the play of role players. How do you think Rui, Austin, Jarrett, Diaz, and D'Angelo, how do you think they equated themselves out there tonight? I thought they did the best they could, all of them. They competed. You know, I'm disappointed, but I'm not upset, you know what I mean, in terms of, yeah, it sucks to lose. But those guys fought. They fought their hearts out. They tried to execute what we gave them. And for some of them shots went down. For some of them, some didn't. And that's just the way it goes, man. Like it's their fight. Nobody was out there just going through the motions. Everyone, I felt like, everyone was competing and trying to get stuff done when they were on the floor. Yeah, Darvin, just with Denver's shot making, I think they've hit at least 14 threes in the three games tonight. Even when Jokic was sitting, they got the five threes at the end of that stretch. What do you look at scheme-wise versus just size or what they're doing? And is there anything that can be adjusted going into game four? Yeah, we'll go back and look at the tape and then see where we go from there. Just everyone, as long as we remain competitive and ready to give multiple efforts just in a general sense, I think we give ourselves a chance to be successful. But in terms of the particulars and the coverages and adjustments, you know, we'll go back and look at the tape and then that will reveal to us what we need to do. Hey, Darvin, I remember you recently wrote 0.3 on a whiteboard, signifying the chances that, you know, you were given to make the playoffs after a 2-10 start. Obviously, the chances of recovering from a 3-0 hole are even tougher. Is there still that hope, though, considering everything that you guys have overcome already this season? Absolutely. I mean, the deficit is 3-0, not 4. So as long as they haven't gotten a 4 yet, there's still hope. We're still alive. We just have to focus on winning one game. Thanks, Coach. Thank you.