The Los Angeles Lakers have one of the toughest opening schedules in the NBA. After facing off against the Golden State Warriors in the first game of the season, the Purple and Gold locked horns with the Los Angeles Clippers in the second game.
As expected, the Lakers ended up losing both games. The common issue in both losses was the Lakers’ underwhelming shooting. In the 103-97 at the hands of the Clippers, Russell Westbrook had one of the worst games of his career.
The former NBA MVP played 27 minutes and scored just 2 points. His only contribution to the score was by his trip to the charity stripe. Other than that, Russ had a 0-11 shooting night, which included going 0-6 from deep.
LeBron James’ Advice To Russell Westbrook
If Russell Westbrook cannot find a way to be productive for the Lakers soon, the organization may once again miss the playoffs. So following Russ’ huge shooting struggles, his teammate LeBron James was asked what advice did he have for Westbrook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ32VHBILTg
“Flush it down the toilet and get ready for Sunday. He’s a veteran. We’ve all had bad shooting nights. Everybody in this league has had bad shooting nights. Who cares? I thought he played a great game defensively. He was locked in. He pushed the tempo. He didn’t make any shots, and that’s ok. He had five steals, two back-to-back in critical time… he just didn’t make any shots. That’s fine. Just flush it down the toilet.”
As LeBron mentioned, players having a bad shooting night is not something new. Over the years, we have seen even the best of the shooters in the league struggle to get their shots in during some games. Hopefully, Russ can bounce back from this and comes back stronger than ever in the next game and help the Lakers in winning their first game of the 2022-23 NBA season.
