The Los Angeles Lakers had their worst outing of the 2015-16 NBA season as they fell to the defending champion Golden State Warriors, 111-77.
One of the more disturbing stats was the Lakers lack of ball movement. The Lakers had only 16 assists on their 31 baskets while the Warriors had 32 on 45 baskets. The Lakers also failed to record an assist in the first quarter.
Now sitting at 2-12, something needs to change for the Lakers and Nick Young said that the team has to focus on playing more as a team as transcribed by LakersNation.com reporter Serena Winters:
.@LAIreland asked Nick Young what LAL can do better, his response: “We can’t let one guy determine everything. We have to play as a team"
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) November 25, 2015
Nick Young continued: "It can’t be like a video game & you’re playing w/ your favorite player, you know? We’ve all got to share the ball.”
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) November 25, 2015
Young hasn’t necessarily been the voice of reason during his time with the Lakers, but it is hard to argue with his thinking here. Ball movement has to be improved if the Lakers ever hope to get their offense to a more respectable level.
The person who is surely going to come up in this is Kobe Bryant who tied the worst shooting performance of his career, making only one of his 14 attempts. Kobe has tended to take a lot of contested jumpers in isolation moments this season and at times has hurt the ball movement of the team.
Kobe himself has preached ball movement this season and admitted that he needs to take better shots. There are a lot of issues that need fixing for the Lakers right now, but this is among the more pressing ones.
