LOS ANGELES — Fatigue creeps into almost every team at some point. For the Lakers, it appears to be now. 

They looked tired overall and disjointed down the stretch in a 116-111 loss Wednesday to the Sacramento Kings at Crypto.com Arena.

The Kings crushed the Lakers with 14 offensive rebounds and had a lot of open looks from three-point range — two signs of a weary Lakers team.

LeBron James owned up to being tired a couple days earlier after scoring 48 points against Houston. He scored 32 against Sacramento — golf clap for a 38-year-old continuing to produce like this — but he made only two of nine three-point attempts.

And, of course, there was that too-high stat that’s been prevalent this month: James played 37 minutes.

“I feel bad about that,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “He’s playing at an amazing level, but we can’t run him into the ground. We just have to manage him and have clarity in terms of scaling back his minutes some. It is a concern. My staff and I talk about it all the time. We’re in these games, he wants to win, I want to win …you kind of lose sight of the minutes until you see the stat sheet and go, ‘Oh, hell,’”

“No matter [the] fatigue, no matter what’s going on with me personally with bumps and bruises, my job is to go out and try to produce at a high level,” James said. “We just came up a little bit short.”

Signs of exhaustion make sense. The Lakers (20-25) have been short-handed for over a month since Anthony Davis went down with a stress fracture in his foot. Then Austin Reaves and Lonnie Walker IV were sidelined with injuries.

James scored plenty of points against Sacramento, but no other Lakers starter scored more than eight. The Lakers got a boost from their bench, including 19 from Russell Westbrook and 14 from Max Christie. It wasn’t enough.

The Lakers had trouble in the final two minutes with too many empty possessions in a very close game.

Westbrook missed a three-point shot. Then James missed one. Then rookie Max Christie committed a clear-path foul on Richaun Holmes after a long outlet pass, giving the Kings two free throws and the ball out of bounds.

“Down the stretch, gotta make winning plays on offense and defense,” Westbrook said. “A rebound here, a tip-out, a box out… these things add up to not closing out a game.”

For the record, the Kings (25-18) were short-handed, too. Domantas Sabonis sat out because of a non-COVID illness, a definite loss for a team on the rise. Sabonis has had four-triple doubles this season and is a big reason the Kings entered the night in fourth place in the Western Conference.

De’Aaron Fox scored 31 points and Harrison Barnes added 20 to make sure the Kings didn’t miss Sabonis too much. The Lakers were charged up early and took a 14-point lead in the first quarter. It slowly faded from there.

“We’re definitely a ball club that has zero room for error,” James said. “I thought we played pretty good basketball. We are limited with bodies.”

The Lakers fell to 1-3 on a five-game home stand that they hoped would produce more victories. It doesn’t get any easier Friday with Memphis coming to town. The Grizzlies are tied for first in the West and have won 11 consecutive games.