Lakers News: Schröder, Hachimura to Start over Russell, Vanderbilt in G4 vs. Nuggets

After poor performances in the Lakers' Game 3 loss against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals on Saturday, D'Angelo Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt have been taken out of Los Angeles' starting lineup, the team announced.

Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report was first to report the lineup change, which sees Dennis Schröder and Rui Hachimura start Game 4 on Monday over Vanderbilt and Russell, who were both starters Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena.

LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Austin Reaves round out the rest of the five.

Hachimura in particular has been one of the Lakers' most effective players in the series and Ham will be hoping that his introduction to the starting lineup will give the squad a much-needed boost down 3-0 in the series.

Russell was the target of a lot of criticism following his rough performance in Game 3 in which he scored just three points on 1-of-8 shooting from the field with three rebounds, four assists and three turnovers in just 20 minutes of action.

At a certain point, head coach Darvin Ham couldn't keep him in as he was a liability on both ends of the floor.

Vanderbilt wasn't much better, with two points on 1-of-4 shooting in 14 minutes. It simply wasn't enough going up against Denver's dynamic backcourt of Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Schröder hasn't been great coming off the bench, with just nine points over the past two games. But he had decent outing in Game 1 when in the starting lineup, scoring six points on 2-of-3 shooting with two three-pointers, three rebounds and five assists.

The Lakers were bound to make some sort of change as they are on the brink of elimination.