The Los Angeles Lakers had their worst offensive performance of the season as they were destroyed by the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night. As a team, they managed just 80 points while committing 20 turnovers and LeBron James was at the forefront of both, shooting just 4-of-16 to finish with only 10 points while coughing it up six times.
LeBron was far from the only Laker to struggle offensively as Anthony Davis scored just 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting and rookie Dalton Knecht added just six. And when it comes to what has caused the Lakers offense to plummet, James gave one theory, wondering if the Lakers being so focused on fixing their defense caused their offense to stagnate, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We’re just not good offensively right now. I think we spent so much time on trying to get our defense corrected that our offense just took a toll and took a back seat to that. We’re not great offensively right now.”
LeBron added that there isn’t one area where the Lakers are struggling, but feels everything is wrong with the offense:
“Everything. It’s not just one area, but definitely spacing. Guys have been on top of each other. We’re not getting our running habits as we were early on. But it’s a little bit of everything. It’s not just one thing.”
But James does have confidence in the Lakers’ ability to turn it around, pointing to the team making improvements defensively and feeling they will do the same on the other side of the ball:
“Watching the film and seeing ways we can be better. We did that a lot when we wanted our defense to get corrected and we corrected it. So we’ll spend a little bit more time on offensive things too.”
One boost that the Lakers offense could use would be from LeBron himself. Over the last six games, James is averaging just 16.8 points on 39.8% shooting from the field and 10% from 3-point range. And LeBron isn’t hiding from that either, admitting that he’s been out of rhythm recently:
The Los Angeles Lakers had their worst offensive performance of the season as they were destroyed by the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night. As a team, they managed just 80 points while committing 20 turnovers and LeBron James was at the forefront of both, shooting just 4-of-16 to finish with only 10 points while coughing it up six times.
LeBron was far from the only Laker to struggle offensively as Anthony Davis scored just 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting and rookie Dalton Knecht added just six. And when it comes to what has caused the Lakers offense to plummet, James gave one theory, wondering if the Lakers being so focused on fixing their defense caused their offense to stagnate, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We’re just not good offensively right now. I think we spent so much time on trying to get our defense corrected that our offense just took a toll and took a back seat to that. We’re not great offensively right now.”
LeBron added that there isn’t one area where the Lakers are struggling, but feels everything is wrong with the offense:
“Everything. It’s not just one area, but definitely spacing. Guys have been on top of each other. We’re not getting our running habits as we were early on. But it’s a little bit of everything. It’s not just one thing.”
But James does have confidence in the Lakers’ ability to turn it around, pointing to the team making improvements defensively and feeling they will do the same on the other side of the ball:
“Watching the film and seeing ways we can be better. We did that a lot when we wanted our defense to get corrected and we corrected it. So we’ll spend a little bit more time on offensive things too.”
One boost that the Lakers offense could use would be from LeBron himself. Over the last six games, James is averaging just 16.8 points on 39.8% shooting from the field and 10% from 3-point range. And LeBron isn’t hiding from that either, admitting that he’s been out of rhythm recently:
“Just everything. It’s rhythm. I’ve just felt out of rhythm the last three or four games.”
There are a lot of things the Lakers need to fix in order to get their offense back to the level it had been previously and from the looks of it LeBron is ready to put in the work as is the rest of the team.
Lakers’ LeBron James plans to ‘work’ to get out of shooting slump
It has been the 3-point shooting of LeBron James that has jumped up a level since last season and he got off to a great start this season. But the last four games has seen the Lakers star miss all 19 of his attempts from deep.
LeBron won’t be deterred as he simply plans to ‘work’ his way out of his slump. Following the loss to the Timberwolves that was the answer LeBron gave when asked how he gets out of the slump, ‘just work.’
