One thing that is clear following two Los Angeles Lakers regular season games is that they are a terrible outside shooting team. While they likely won’t continue to shoot it as bad as they have so far, the roster surrounding LeBron James and Anthony Davis simply doesn’t have a lot of knockdown shooters, or any for that matter so far.
The Lakers shot 9-of-45 from 3-point range and that was a huge reason why the team came up just short against the Los Angeles Clippers in their home opener. After battling back from multiple double-digit deficits, the Lakers just couldn’t knock down shots late when they really needed to as Davis pointed out.
“Shooting again tonight,” the Lakers big man said following the six-point loss. “We made some tonight but once again had great looks. Our competitive spirit was there, held them to 103 [points]. Did a good job on all of their guys defensively, just got to make shots.”
The effort defensively was undoubtedly there and the Lakers played very hard all night long which was encouraging overall. Davis had another solid night with 25 points and eight rebounds, but the backcourt trio of Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley and Kendrick Nunn combined to shoot an abysmal 1-of-25.
But despite two straight games of awful shooting, Davis insists the message to the team is to keep taking the shots they’re getting.
“Yeah, I mean we’re getting great looks,” Davis added. “All our guys. Russ had great looks, Pat had great looks, Lonnie, myself, LeBron, Austin. We’re getting great looks. Just continue to have confidence in yourself and don’t let missed shots take away your confidence. Keep shooting it and be confident in your shot and they’re gonna fall.”
The Lakers are definitely creating good, open looks, but as LeBron recently pointed out, much of that could also be by design of the opposing defense. But there also has to be a belief that the Lakers’ outside shooting can’t possibly continue to be this bad.
There were some positives to take away from this game for the Lakers, however, especially on the defensive side of the ball and if that energy and effort can sustain, there should be some more positive outcomes moving forward.
Davis admits he must rebound better for the Lakers
One area that was not encouraging for the Lakers was their work on the glass. The Lakers were outrebounded 58-to-38 and while some of that has to do with the Lakers’ poor shooting, it is still something that must improve and Davis put much of that onus on himself.
“I got to do a better job rebounding the ball as well,” Davis said. “We all do. It’s simple, we just got to go get them. Especially against a team like that, I think they were last last year in defensive rebounds so we should’ve gotten a lot more rebounds tonight. We just got to go get the ball on the defensive end. The times we do get them and push the pace, it looks really good. But we got to get the ball first.”
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