Los Angeles Lakers: 3 things that must improve to make deep playoff run

3. The Los Angeles Lakers need to commit fewer turnovers

Missed free throws and turning the ball over. Those are the first two ingredients in the recipe for failure in the NBA Playoffs. Typically, to counteract that, a team might look to chuck up threes and hope to bring the game back with great three-point shooting.

Too bad that is not the Los Angeles Lakers’ identity.

As good as the team is on defense, the offense has really struggled this season and this is one of the reasons why. Granted, LeBron James has been out a month and Anthony Davis longer than that, but this was a problem when those two were healthy as well.

The Lakers are simply turning the ball over too frequently. That is a death sentence in the playoffs and it does not matter how good the defense is if a team consistently loses the turnover battle in a playoff series.

The Lakers are averaging 15.5 turnovers per game, good enough for the second-most turnovers per game in the entire league. Turnovers are inevitable and will happen, but that many turnovers is unacceptable for a title contender.

Last year’s team was not geat in this regard either but they were better and again, last season was a bit of an anamoly. The Lakers did not have to face the second, third or even fourth best team in the league last year. Turnovers will not fly against a team like the Brooklyn Nets, Philadlephia 76ers, or Los Angeles Clippers.

The hope is that once the game slows down in the playoffs so will the turnover rate. But with LeBron getting hurt and not getting a chance to fully build that chemistry with the new guys, there is also the chance of it rising as well.

All statistics courtesy of Basketball-Reference and Stathead.