After Anthony Davis picked up an injury a couple of days ago, the Los Angeles Lakers’ issues have been more visible now. The purple and gold are trying to repeat the big season they had last year, winning the 2020 NBA title in the Orlando bubble but the first part of the season is presenting more problems than expected.
In the past couple of games, the Lakers have struggled to get the results, and even though they’ve won a couple of games, they haven’t looked like the dangerous team they were last season. In fact, after their 96-94 loss to the Miami Heat on Saturday night, their struggles were more visible for the public, especially from beyond the arc, their biggest flaw over the last seven games.
Throughout the game, the Lakers shot 13-of-45 from 3. In the 4th quarter, they missed 12 of their 13 attempts, with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope making the only three-pointer they managed to sink in the last 12 minutes of the game.
LAL have been playing with what look like tired legs for a couple of weeks now, perhaps supported tonight by the 4th Q shooting from 3:
LeBron: 0 for 4
Kuz: 0 for 4
Gasol/Caruso/Matthews/THT: all 0 for 1
KCP: 1 for 1
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) February 21, 2021
Their numbers over the last seven games aren’t very promising for the purple and gold, with only one player shooting 50% from beyond the arc, only one, Marc Gasol, shooting for 40%, and two guys shooting 30% from deep. LeBron James is shooting 19.6% and that should tell you how bad this team is shooting from the perimeter right now.
Very NSFW:
Here are the Lakers' 3-point shooting numbers for the last 7 game pic.twitter.com/pV76E6K1Lm
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) February 21, 2021
The King wasn’t bothered by the team’s struggles in the fourth quarter, just saying the shots didn’t fall for them and that was it.
“We got some great looks … Shots just weren’t falling in the fourth,” James said after the game.
“I don’t think it’s any reason for that,” LeBron said. “Our guys do a great job in the gym, we all put in the work … The law of averages will even itself out.”
Things don’t look very promising for the Lakers and we’re still two weeks away from the All-Star break. If they want to keep their chances to be champion alive, they need to be better than this. Anthony Davis won’t return in four weeks and they need to step up and show they can do better from the perimeter or their rivals will have an easy job against them. Even the Heat took advantage of that and earned a big win on Saturday.
