8300 - 8500 VR plateau and getting clobbered - advice?

I've been making fairly steady progress towards improving my game, but over the last few days I've been completely plateaued at 8300-8500 VR for Knockout Tour.

It seems like more and more often I'm getting completely wrecked either at the last moment before checkpoints, or from the very beginning to the point where it is one of those things where you just kind of shrug your shoulders like "welp, not much you can do if god hates you"

With that said, I'm sure there is something that the very best players do that lowers their odds of getting railroaded by items with a second to go - anyone have any tips for that specific issue, or just the mid 8000 VR rank in general?

Thank you pals