The Los Angeles Lakers’ offense has been league-worst since the restart
Put simply, the Los Angeles Lakers bubble-offense has been putrid. To put into context how bad they’ve been, the Bradley Beal-less Washington Wizards, a team that has no business being in the bubble, has the second-worst points per game at 105.0. The Lakers are checking in at an anemic 100.8 points per game.
To put that into context, that’s almost 25 points per game less than the bubble-leading (and regular-season leading) Dallas Mavericks offense.
Even adjusted for pace, the Lakers’ offensive rating is dead last at 97.9.
I believe that the Lakers are due for some positive regression, after all, they were the 11th ranked offense in the regular season. I also do not expect LeBron James and Anthony Davis to continue to shoot 45% and 39% respectively.
However, these awful numbers show just how reliant the Lakers are on LeBron and Davis always being at their best. Fortunately, this is two of the top five players in the world we’re talking about, so they’ll be dominant more often than not.
Having said that, if this small sample size continues to be a trend in the first round of the playoffs, a team like the Portland Trailblazers will be a dangerous foe.
The Los Angeles Lakers’ outside shooting has been atrocious
Outside shooting has never been the forte of the 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers. Before the restart, the Lakers were ranked 17th in 3 point percentage at 35.5% and 21st in 3 point makes at 11.2 per game.
In the bubble, both those numbers are once again league-worst, with the team as a whole shooting at 25.4% with 8.3 makes per game across six games. The only regular rotation player who has been shooting the ball at a high level is Kyle Kuzma, who’s been knocking down treys at a 41.9% clip. The next best is Anthony Davis, who is hitting them at a paltry 30.4%.
While I think the importance of outside shooting is a little overstated in today’s NBA, there comes a point where you can’t ignore simple math.
Three is greater than two, and that was extremely evident in the game against the Houston Rockets. Believe it or not, the LeBron-less Lakers shot a higher percentage from the field than their counterparts (45.5% compared to 42.9%), but due to a difference of 19 made three-pointers (21 vs 2), lost the game by double digits.
The team is not constructed to shoot 50+ three-pointers a game like the aforementioned Rockets, but they do need to hit them at a far more consistent rate come playoff time.
Although six games is a small sample size, it also happens to be the approximate length of a playoff series. All six Lakers games thus far also happen to have come against teams guaranteed spots in the playoffs. Against good teams, they cannot afford to be this ice-cold for even a six-game stretch if they want to live up to the lofty expectations set both internally and by the fanbase.
Anthony Davis has looked out of sorts since the Jazz game
Three games into the season restart, the primary reason I was optimistic about the Los Angeles Lakers was the sheer brilliance of Anthony Davis.
His quiet game against the fearsome interior defense of the Toronto Raptors was bookended by two dominant efforts: a 34 point effort against the LA Clippers and a 42 point effort against the Utah Jazz.
Since then, he’s looked like a completely different player. In the three games since his demolition of the Jazz, The Brow’s numbers have plummeted to 11.3 PPG / 9.0 RPG / 4.0 APG on 33% from the field, all Laker losses.
While this author is in no way making excuses for Davis’ recent insipid play, the dramatic drop in performance leads me to question whether there’s more at play than meet the eye.
In the leadup to the game against the Indiana Pacers, the injury report stated that Davis has been dealing with a sprained right ankle. Is this the culprit for his recent horrible stretch of form? Perhaps. In the loss to the Pacers, AD did not look as explosive and spry as I’ve come to expect from him. He also is notorious for being injury-prone throughout his career, so it’s not a stretch to believe that his ankle is bothering him.
LeBron James is at the point of his career where he can still carry a team in any given game, but at nearly 36 years of age, it’s asking far too much of him to expect him to do it for an entire playoff series.
Whether Anthony Davis is playing hurt or has merely experienced a significant dip in form, one thing is certain: the Lakers aren’t going to get close to winning the 2019-20 NBA Championship if he’s not firing on all cylinders.