With LeBron James and Anthony Davis still sidelined, the Los Angeles Lakers are missing the pillars of their offense and have thus often struggled to score.
Although the Lakers managed to sign Andre Drummond, the center has also not been very effective scoring the basketball since joining the team. In their win against the Charlotte Hornets, Drummond only scored four points on 2-of-7 shooting, and that’s coming off a game against the New York Knicks in which he only scored three points
While it is has not come together for him offensively quite yet, which Drummond wasn’t afraid to admit, he added that he’s focused on helping the team defensively and believes the scoring will come.
“Like I said earlier, I’m still trying to figure it out, too,” Drummond said after the win over Charlotte. “Offensively, it’s probably the worst I’ve played in my career (laughs). I’m still trying to figure it out here. I’m not allowing it to take me out of my game. I know why I’m here, which is to help this team defensively. Offensively it will come for me. I think for us as a team, we’re going to find a way to get it done when guys come back healthy.
“We’re playing with a different five every night. You can’t expect us to have much chemistry. You don’t know who we’re playing with each and every night, so we’re hanging our hat on defense and allowing that to project us to a win.”
Defensively, Drummond has been fairly solid as he has been a deterrent at the rim and has even flashed his quick hands. He racked up three steals against the Hornets, playing passing lanes well and digging at players’ dribbles.
Even if the scoring does not come around, Drummond can still offensive rebound with the best of them so he should be able to contribute no matter what.
Vogel believes nature of defenses have limited Drummond
Head coach Frank Vogel did not sound concerned about Drummond’s perceived lack of offensive success. Instead, he attributed the low point totals to the types of defenses the Lakers have played.
“Well I think having LeBron out there will contribute to it and AD, two elite playmakers,” Vogel explained. “The last two nights have been difficult challenges, we had a really stingy defense that we played against last night that was intent to not let us post-up by fronting and not letting our bigs get any post touches.
“Tonight, they played zone the whole game, you know what I mean. You play zone to take away the post, to pack it in and to take away players like Trezz and Drummond and we just have to take what the defense gives us, which was a lot of perimeter shots, a lot of drive and kick situations and it didn’t result in Drummond having a high point total. But I don’t agree that he’s playing really poorly offensively, just the nature of the last two defensive opponents.”
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