Since Frank Vogel took over as the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, the team has not been a very efficient offense.
LeBron James is often times the only source of scoring in the half-court most nights, but even he could not get much going in their blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night. James ended the night with a pedestrian 19 points on 8-of-21 shooting, but the rest of the team did not fare any better as they collectively shot 41.9 percent from the field and 22.2% from the 31-point line.
The NBA is a make-or-miss league, and at the end of the day, James feels that’s where the Lakers struggled against the Timberwolves as they were daring them to shoot.
“We got to make shots, it’s that obvious. Teams are daring us to shoot the ball from outside and we’re not making them,” James said.
The Lakers have also struggled with their energy as of late, b8ut James didn’t feel having that edge was the problem against Minnesota.
“No, I thought we had an edge tonight, we just didn’t make shots. Like you said, we started the game 0-for-10 but we climbed back into the game all game. We outscored them 31-19 in the third but it still boils down to making shots and we didn’t make enough shots consistently tonight but I thought our effort, I thought the way we played, I thought our commitment to the defensive end holding them to 44% shooting, they made 17 threes compared to our 10 and that was part of the game.”
The Lakers have made it a habit of making second-half comebacks to make games interesting and James detailed how he and the team can muster some fight in those situations.
“Because there’s still more game to be played. The game is never over until it’s over so you don’t have to look too far, you just know there’s more game to be played and continue to execute, continue to get stops and that’s what we did in the second half.”
The comebacks almost never fully materialize because Los Angeles tends to shoot themselves in the foot and give the opposing team a chance to put them away. In this case, the Timberwolves were able to retake control in the fourth quarter and make sure the Lakers never had a shot to win.
Unfortunately, the losing streak could continue when they head over the border to Canada to take on a Toronto Raptors team squad that just beat them handily.
Anthony Davis understands championship window with LeBron James is closing
Time is ticking for the Lakers to get back to being title contenders considering James is not getting any younger. Everyone around the organization is conscious of their championship window, including Anthony Davis who is unsure how much longer his co-star will be in the NBA for.
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