Over the last four games Los Angeles Lakers reserve guard Lou Williams has been nothing short of amazing. His 137 points over that span is the largest total by any reserve since 1970 and he has almost singlehandedly kept the Lakers in games at times.
When Williams get hot the Lakers immediately begin looking to feed him on nearly every possession, but head coach Luke Walton believes that can happen to a fault sometimes.
— Get 15% off everything in the Lakers Nation Store right now by using the promo code ‘Lakers’ —
After Friday’s game against the Suns, Walton spoke about the rest of the Lakers lacking aggression at times because everyone is simply looking to force feed Williams:
“We were looking for him, but Phoenix knows that too, they know what they’re doing. If that is the case we should look away, we don’t want to have four guys looking to get one guy the ball and no one looking to be aggressive. We have a lot of young guys that we think are really good.”
Walton added that it’s fine to look for him, but not at the expense of the entire offense:
“If someone is hot you want to look at them, but you don’t want to stop everything else you’re doing.”
As Walton pointed out, the opponent is also aware that the Lakers are looking to go to Williams every time and are trying to stop it. The Lakers should then be able to use that to their advantage and find better shots for the rest of the team. Walton even spoke about having that conversation with Julius Randle in particular.
Players like Randle, Jordan Clarkson, and Brandon Ingram are all capable of finding holes in the defense and exploiting them for their own shots. When a team is focusing on stopping Williams, which they should considering his hot streak, the rest of the team must take advantage.
These are things that are sure to come in time for the young Lakers as they are still learning. Unfortunately, because of this, Williams’ scoring exploits have been in losses instead of wins.
**All quotes obtained by Lakers Nation reporter Serena Winters
