Los Angeles Lakers point guard D’Angelo Russell is enjoying the best shooting season of his career and is now set to put his name in the franchise record books. With his six made 3-pointers in the Lakers’ win over the Atlanta Hawks, Russell tied the franchise record for 3-pointers made in a season held by Nick Van Exel.
It is a huge accomplishment for Russell, especially considering his up-and-down start to the season. Head coach Darvin Ham had nothing but praise for Russell hitting this milestone and stressed his desire for Russell to remain aggressive.
“I think it’s been great,” Ham said after the Lakers win. “He works at his craft, it’s great to see how well he’s playing overall. But his shooting, he’s hands down the best shooter on our team, and we have a few. I wanted him to be aggressive from the 3-point line as much as possible, he’s shown in the regular season and playoffs, in those spurts that he can go off from the 3-point line.
“Just want him to stay aggressive, and he does a great job of trying to mix up his points of attack with and without the ball in his hands. He’s one of our best cutters, when teams try to zone us and double team the post, he’s sneaking in there in the middle of the paint and getting little floaters and bunnies. But his prowess from the 3-point line is really, really elite and we need every bit of it.”
And to that point of Russell remaining aggressive, Ham said that the Lakers guard has more than a green light to keep shooting. “He has a green room. Not a green light, a green room,” Ham added. “When you have teams, it opens up so much when he comes off the pick-and-roll and you’re able to set a good screen at the right angle and teams know they’re gonna have to go over or we’re running something for him to come off, it’s an off-ball screen and they know they got to chase over.
“It opens up everything in the pocket where it’s a quick dumpoff to a pocket dunk or pocket pass, hockey assist, pocket pass to someone else on the other side for an open shot. So just that ability to not only be aggressive, but be efficient at a high level from beyond the arc, it opens up a ton.”
There is no doubt that Russell’s outstanding shooting has helped to open up the Lakers’ offense immensely. Upon hearing of Ham’s words about him having a ‘green room,’ Russell was humbled by the trust the Lakers coach has in him.
“I mean, I appreciate him trusting me to that extent. Definitely try to feel like I earned something like that and it wasn’t given. So to know that that’s something I put to work in to do and to put the work in to continue to do, I mean, seems normal for me. Humbly.”
The Lakers truly need Russell at his best to have any chance of making a postseason run and Ham is empowering him to remain aggressive and continue doing what makes him great.
D’Angelo Russell calls it ‘really cool’ to tie Lakers’ single-season 3-point record
As far as what it means to Russell himself to have tied this Lakers record, in true D’Angelo Russell fashion, he was calm in expressing his happiness at the accomplishment.
“That’s really cool. Honestly, just to know that, to get credit for it,” Russell said. “It’s just really cool. I said I don’t want to underdo it, understate it, overdo it. I just think it’s really cool to just be a part of something like that. I think I did something like that in Brooklyn as well. Just get credit for your game and what you work to do and showcase it every night, just to get credit for something like this, it’s really cool.”
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