Practice Report: Lakers Admit Ineffectiveness of Pick-And-Roll

After the seven-game road trip, a common them emerged at the Lakers facility this morning. Besides frustrations with the media and the devastating news that Pau Gasol will be out a minimum of 6-8 weeks, something else became ever more apparent over these last two weeks. The pick and roll offense, that looks perfect on paper, with two players that have shown success running it, just has not been effective, and everyone, including Mike D’Antoni, is realizing it.

“It just hasn’t worked yet, and we’ll find other ways to do things.”

Back at the Lakers practice facility for the first time in almost two weeks, the late morning started out with Mike D’Antoni expressing surprise that the pick-and-roll has been mediocre, at best. Once the early afternoon hit,  Steve Nash was admitting the same sentiments.

“I would’ve thought we’d be a lot more potent in the pick-and-roll situations…He (Dwight) played in a pick-and-roll offense, I played in the pick-and-roll offense…I thought it would have been a lot more effective than it has been thus far, but maybe we can sort it out.”

Maybe. Steve Nash left the media with words of “maybe [the Lakers] can sort it out.” Not exactly uplifting. Finally, it was turn for Dwight Howard to speak up, and for once, it seemed like everyone was on the same page. With the personnel that the Lakers have, their pick-and-roll should be the deadliest offense in the NBA.

—- Check out this wallpaper of Steve Nash, the Lakers Point God! —-

“It should be a deadly weapon. The pick-and-roll with me and Kobe, me and Steve, should be deadly. It hasn’t been as effective every night as we would like it to be.”

Unfortunately, the one thing everyone seems to be in agreement upon is that the Lakers offense has proved far from deadly. In fact, the only thing deadly about it, might be how close it is to killing the Lakers playoff hopes.

“I understand what we’re trying to do out of the pick-and-roll…it just hasn’t been very effective.” – Dwight Howard

The Lakers have 30 games left, and with Pau Gasol out, the rest of the way isn’t going to be easy. Kobe Bryant said today that the biggest positive of their road trip was that they “kept their head above the water.” Let’s just hope the Lakers can keep floating all the way to the playoffs.

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VIDEO: Dwight Howard on the ineffective pick-and-roll, his decision to come to L.A. and how the media has affected this team

httpvhd://youtu.be/bMGYZUyQntc

Reporter: Serena Winters, Follow on Twitter @SerenaWinters