The Los Angeles Lakers continue to bring rookie point guard Lonzo Ball back slowly from his sprained MCL, but even with a minutes restriction he is making a big impact when he’s on the court.
Luke Walton has been bringing Ball off the bench with many of his minutes coming alongside Isaiah Thomas. On Monday night both were effective in the Lakers’ win over the Atlanta Hawks, with Lonzo especially showing out.
He made all four of his shots, with three of those coming from beyond the arc. In his two games back, Ball has hit six of his nine 3-point attempts.
His success has caught the eye of Thomas who, after the game, said despite the aesthetics of Ball’s oft-criticized shooting form, there isn’t reason to change it, via Bill Oram of the Southern California News Group:
“It’s ugly as hell,” Thomas said. “It’s an ugly shot, but he’s been successful with it his whole life, so you get to the highest level, there is no need to change it.
“You just got to figure out ways to continue to make it better. He is a gym rat so he is going to continue to get better no matter what and no matter how it looks.”
Ball came under a lot of scrutiny early in the season with his shooting struggles, but even before the injury he had begun to turn the corner. Over his last 13 games played, he’s shot 41.8 percent from 3-point range, an extremely impressive clip.
Playing with Thomas also helps as he and Ball have shown they can play off each other very well, creating open looks regularly.
Ball’s form isn’t pretty, but it did get him to this point, as Thomas and many others have noted. Now that Lonzo is starting to consistently knock down shots from deep, perhaps those questions will start to be a thing of the past.
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