With all three of their top point guard options sidelined by injury, the Lakers’ offense struggled to find its direction in a tilt with a team suffering similar woes.
Sans Lonzo Ball, Isaiah Thomas and Brandon Ingram, the Lakers scored their second-fewest points of the season, falling to Sacramento, 84-83.
“This is a game we should win: at home when we hold the opponent to 84 points,” coach Luke Walton said. “We didn’t do a good job of taking it when we had our chance.
“And we keep telling the guys: If you leave it up to the end the game in the NBA, anything can happen. … If you have a chance to take the game, then you have to go and take it.”
Alex Caruso (seven points, two assists) started for the first time in his career, but neither he nor backup point guard Tyler Ennis (four points, four assists) provided the kind of production normalized by Ball and co.
The Lakers shot just 40.0 percent from the field and 7-of-32 from 3-point range. Sacramento fared even worse, hitting 38.0 percent and 7-of-24 from downtown.
Even when L.A. was scoring, it was in an unsightly manner.
Julius Randle led the team with 19 points yet sat large stretches of the game due to foul trouble.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (16 points) shot 6-of-7 on two-pointers thanks to a parade of layups, but missed all six of his 3-point attempts. Kyle Kuzma put up 16 shots that netted only 13 points.
”Playmaking: That’s the biggest thing (missing),” Kuzma said. “Having Lonzo, he’s a dynamic point guard. (Ingram) can play a little bit of that point forward role. We miss those guys in that aspect.”
Randle nearly carried the Lakers (33-43) to victory, as his physical play led to a constant march to the foul line.
His fourth quarter included 12 free throw attempts, as he scored 11 consecutive points for the Lakers across more than six minutes of game time.
With 68 seconds remaining, Randle split his foul shots on back-to-back possessions to tie the game at 80 But the Kings (25-53) responded with a fast-break dunk by Buddy Hield and a De’Aaron Fox Floater, sealing a game that featured 17 lead changes and 14 ties.
The Lakers will travel to Salt Lake City for their next game against Utah on Tuesday before returning to play all of their final five contests in Los Angeles.
Every remaining opponent is playoff-bound or fighting for a postseason spot.
“We are going to have to play a lot better for the remainder of the season,” Walton said. “We have some really good teams coming in town that are playing for something pretty significant. we are going to have to elevate our game a lot, or it is going to be a long six games to end the season.”
Notes
Hield led Sacramento with 19 points. … Eleven of the Lakers’ 15 turnovers came in the second half. … A sold-out crowd of 18,997 — including Dennis Rodman — was on hand at Staples Center.