Killer Instinct Among Priorities

The Lakers reached the midway point of the season Monday with their victory over Dallas, improving to 29-12 in what is their best record at this stage since 1990-91.

On the other hand. . . .

“We’ve lost five games just from the inability to hit the free throw,” Coach Del Harris said. “We could ‘if’ ourselves into an undefeated season, as most teams can who are up in the standings. In the second half, we don’t want to be ‘iffing’ our way. Let’s start now, dedicating ourselves to a little more concentrated effort on our shooting and practice time so that this summer we’re not talking about what we could have done.”

Also on high on the priority list for the second half: playing focused for the entire game.

“When we have a team down, we never want to kill them,” Eddie Jones said. “We’re going to have to get it in our heads that once we have a team down, we have to have a killer instinct to put them away.”

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Harris, on how Derek Fisher handled being dropped to third-string point guard despite his encouraging play: “Derek is a very mature young man. He’s a pro. His response was to be the first one to practice [Sunday] and the last one to leave.”