Injuries have become a significant issue for the Lakers as they take the court tonight against the Heat in Miami. Taurean Prince should return to the floor, fingers crossed, but Gabe Vincent, Jared Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura and Jalen Hood-Schifino remain out, and now Jaxson Hayes has found his way to the injury report as well.

Most teams would struggle missing multiple players from their rotation, even while the stars are in uniform.

But the Lakers have other issues that have shown themselves to be a problem, even before the injury bug started biting. Namely, the Lakers have been hammered on the glass, and as a result are giving up a ton of second chance points (while also doing very little to generate second chance points, themselves). Not unrelated, the Lakers are consistently falling behind thanks to bad first quarters. Even the games they've won have been come-from-behind. Meaning the Lakers are constantly playing uphill.

All of this stuff was in full display, by the way, against the Magic in Orlando over the weekend.

Knowing what the issues are and managing to fix said issues are not necessarily the same thing, but the Lakers need to bridge that gap ASAP, because few teams can be as bleh as they are on the glass and contend, and the idea of playing from behind through the season and into the playoffs and expecting success isn't even slightly realistic.

Darvin Ham has highlighted the problems, and says the Lakers are working hard to fix them. One them that will help is getting the full lineup back. Or, if that's not an option, just getting Vanderbilt back. He offers a skill set (defense, rebounding) that is badly needed right now. Fair to say his value has been demonstrated in his absence.

Finally, an interesting comment left on the YouTube page regarding the on-court pairing of D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves. Are their strengths as a pairing outweighed by their deficiencies? Why was it a very positive combo last year, and such a negative combo to this point this season?

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

SEGMENT 1: Why are the Lakers getting beat up on the glass?

SEGMENT 2: Why are the Lakers consistently getting off to bad starts?

SEGMENT 3: Can Reaves and Russell play together effectively? Why has it been a struggle to this point this season?

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