Offense needs to connect the shots
To Lakers point guard Dennis Schroder, the key to fixing the team’s struggling offense doesn’t require complex solutions. It’s easy. Do the right thing; make more shots.
“Executing, making shots, playing defense so we can play faster,” Schroder said during a videoconference from the Lakers’ practice in Tampa, Fla.
But Schroder’s diagnosis is somehow both too specific and too general. The Lakers’ biggest problem is that they don’t have LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the planets around which all of the team’s plans orbit. The Lakers’ other problem, without them, is that they haven’t been able to sustain the level of play they attained recently in wins over sub-.500 teams.
Since James’ ankle injury March 20, the Lakers are scoring just 99.7 points per 100 possessions, second worst in the NBA since that date. No team with an offensive rating below 107 has a winning record. If you stretch it back to when Davis aggravated his calf injury, the Lakers’ offense is the sixth-least efficient in the NBA.
On Sunday against the Clippers, the Lakers pointed to an offense that was too disjointed — in part because of the Clippers’ improving defense and in part because the Lakers deviated from their plan.
“I felt like some stretches we weren’t out there playing together,” starting shooting guard Kentavious CaldwellPope said. “I know like these stretches of games that we have, we got LeBron, AD and [Andre] Drummond out, for us other guys, we have to play together as much as possible. We got to pull for each other. And I feel like the ball didn’t move as well in some stretches. We got to also have great ball movement. Everybody’s got to be involved.
“It can’t just be one on one and stuff like that. I felt like we kind of did that a little bit in some stretches of the game.”
The Lakers, who traveled Sunday night to Florida to play the NBA’s only Canadian team, the Toronto Raptors, held a rare practice to try to reinforce their offensive principles.
“We’ve shown a lot of offensive tape of late to try to just get us a better rhythm. I thought we had a similar practice today to what we had after the Milwaukee game. Offensive fundamentals,” coach Frank Vogel said. “And hopefully … I thought there was carryover from the Milwaukee game to the Kings game. Hopefully there’s carryover into the Toronto game tomorrow.”
The Lakers have been playing well on defense in this stretch without their stars, and turning that defense into offense will help mitigate the losses to injury that are unavoidable. They did it in a win at Sacramento on Friday, the blueprint for how they can make things work in the short term.
“We had a hell of a game in Sacramento. I think we played phenomenal on defense, and on the offensive end we just moved the ball,” Schroder said. “I always say when you play good defense and get stops, and when everybody else on the offensive end is sharing it, we running the floor, getting open threes … playing good defense, and then turning it into offense.
“Making shots and everybody’s feeling good, and I think that’s what it comes down to. Defense and we play together, and we’ll be fine.”
TONIGHT AT TORONTO
When: 4:30 PDT.
On the air: TV: Spectrum SportsNet; Radio: 710, 1330. Update: The Raptors have struggled after being displaced to Florida and dealing with a rash of COVID issues. Drummond is listed as questionable, as is Wesley Matthews.