3. The Los Angeles Lakers’ atrocious shooting from range
So much has been made of the Los Angeles Lakers’ three-point struggles that I’ll refrain from boring you with the numbers. But just know that although the Lakers have been a below-average three-point shooting team throughout the season, they were far closer to middle-of-the-pack than to historically awful during the regular season.
Against the Trail Blazers in Game 1, the team shot just 5-32 from three for 15.6%. No team can consistently win with those shooting numbers, not even a team with LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Danny Green, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Kyle Kuzma were especially unproductive from range, a trend that has persisted throughout the restart games.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, these struggles do not seem to stem from any schematic issue that can be easily fixed.
Early in the seeding games, some of the fault could be placed with LeBron; his sloppy handle and lack of explosion on drives led to fewer open looks for his limited teammates. But, as the games went on, James grew increasingly comfortable, and his drives returned to their former potency.
Against the Blazers, LeBron was infiltrating the defense as well as ever, creating a multitude of open looks for his teammates. They just simply couldn’t capitalize. And that’s not something that a coach can easily fix.
Sure, maybe Vogel could throw some minutes towards Jared Dudley, Quinn Cook, or J.R. Smith, but none of those players are game-changers.
Instead, the Lakers’ staff must hope for a positive regression to the mean. After all, Green and Caldwell-Pope are proven three-point shooters, and even the less able Kuzma and Alex Caruso are better snipers than what they’ve demonstrated thus far.
Against one of the worst defenses in basketball, those shooters should continue to find open looks, and with enough volume, those looks will likely soon result in makes.
And, it’s worth noting that the Lakers don’t need anything more than league average from distance. It’s not like they’re asking from a 50% mark or anything.
Just look at the 100-93 score from Game One. This wasn’t the blowout suggested by the above stats.
The Lakers very easily could’ve defeated the Blazers shooting historically poorly from three and getting a less than stellar performance from Davis. Even LeBron couldn’t hit a jump shot, and yet, Los Angeles was in a position to win.
With a few more shots from distance falling, a couple more finishes inside from AD, and maybe another fast-break opportunity or two, the Lakers might’ve taken this one running away.
But of course, hypotheticals are only so valuable.
The Los Angeles Lakers must turn potential into reality to defeat one of the best eighth seeds in recent memory.