The Los Angeles Lakers met at their practice facility on Christmas Eve to squeeze in a half-practice ahead of their Christmas Day game against the Miami Heat. Christmas came early for the Lakers, as news trickled out that Jordan Farmar underwent an ultrasound on his torn hamstring and was fully cleared to play.
Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said Farmar would start immediately. Xavier Henry would return to being the backup point guard, and the Lakers will roll out their 14th new starting lineup of the season.
“Probably not tomorrow,” Farmar responded when asked if he would be playing 40 minutes on Wednesday.
Still, Farmar will start and expects to be used in short “bursts.”
"We need to get some play-making back in there," D’Antoni said about Farmar’s return to the team.
Incidentally, this will be Farmar’s first start of the Lakers this season, and it took the entire stable of point guards getting injured for this to happen.
When asked about the Lakers’ recent emergency point guard signing of Kendall Marshall, D’Antoni revealed that the second year guard had not truly had the opportunity to practice with the team and would be used sparingly.
“No, not yet,” D’Antoni answered when asked if he was comfortable putting Marshall into a competitive game.
In other words, don’t expect Marshall to play on Christmas unless the Lakers are involved in a blowout. Even then, Marshall may only see a couple minutes of game action.
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D’Antoni also took a moment to address comments he made following the loss against the Suns. Following a 27-point loss, the coach overreacted to a comment pointing out some Lakers fans were discouraged by the recent play of the team.
“I was an idiot last night,” D’Antoni started his press conference on Tuesday. “We got a team that needs to overachieve, and we have a lot of injuries, and we’re in a tough state right now. So, we need everybody to be pulling with us… I apologize and we’ll move on, but we need everybody behind these guys. They’re going to play as hard as they can play.”
With D’Antoni admitting fault and Farmar back with the team, the Lakers now look ahead to on the court problems like stopping the Miami Heat.
