Luke Walton says he expects Lakers to play with ‘urgency’ and ‘will’

Although the Lakers struggles over the past few months have directly led to speculation about the job status of Luke Walton, the coach agreed with the thesis of his star player about the team’s lack of experience.

LeBron James infamously called out his teammates after Saturday’s brutal loss in New Orleans, lamenting that the Lakers don’t have a sense of urgency because they’ve never had to have one before. But while Walton agreed that experience is the best teacher, he also isn’t accepting that as an excuse for their poor play.

From Kyle Goon of the Southern California News Group

Luke, continued: " It’s definitely something as a group, being a new team together and relying on a lot of young players, that’s new. We’re learning. …It won’t be perfect, but we’ll continue to come out and get better and we’ll see if we can’t make some noise down the stretch."

— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) February 25, 2019

The Lakers season has been a maddening mix of signature wins against some of the NBA’s elite and head-scratching losses against either bad or undermanned squads, at least ones not named the Phoenix Suns.

The Lakers have a chance to right some of those past wrongs when they visit the Memphis Grizzlies tonight as they look for their 17th win of the season against teams with sub-.500 records.