The Los Angeles Lakers were flying on offense under new head coach JJ Redick at the start of the 2024-25 season. They were one of the better offensive units in the NBA at one stage but have really struggled on that end of the floor recently. Redick was asked about those offensive struggles before Monday’s game against the Detroit Pistons and had an interesting explanation for it.
“For the group, how do we create and generate good shots? I think it’s not one thing, it’s probably a few things,” Redick said. “I would probably point immediately to our shot profile. Over the last 13 [games], we’re taking five more non-paint 2s – we’re shooting 39% on those.
“And for all the people that hate math, I shared this with the team this morning and I think it’s really interesting,” Redick stated. “We’re last, or second to last, in the last 13 in our offense. Those five extra non-paint 2s, if we shot them at the same rate as Phoenix – who shoots 49% on non-paint 2s – our offense would go from 29th to 27th.
“If we took those five middies and we shot league average on 3s, our offense would go from 27th to 12th,” Redick continued. “… Over the last 13, we are last in makes, second-to-last in attempts, last in three-point percentage. In some ways, we need to shoot more 3s and we need to make more 3s.
“That doesn’t mean we come down and just, no pass, one dribble shot,” Redick added. “We’ve got to generate the right ones and we’ve got to do it with the right process and, we’ve showed the guys a bunch of clips over the last week or so of us doing that.
“Make or miss, we’ve got to live with the result and we’ve got to do more of that. We need a launch. We do. And that doesn’t mean we’re not trying to get to the rim every single time, but it’s those two things. We want to live in the paint. We want to shoot 3s. We haven’t shot enough 3s.”
The Lakers have an offensive rating of 105.3 in their last 15 games, which ranks 29th in the league in that time. Only the lowly Washington Wizards have been worse off with a 102.3 rating.
As for the threes, the Lakers are shooting 33 a game over their last 15 outings, which again ranks 29th. Their three-point percentage in that time is 32.3%, which is only good enough for 26th.
Being this poor at outside shooting would be bad enough, but the Lakers have not done a lot of damage inside either. They are averaging 46.7 points in the paint per game in this span, which ranks 21st.
Considering all this, it is hardly a surprise that the Lakers are 6-9 in their last 15 games. Unless Redick manages to fix these issues, the season isn’t going to end on a happy note.
JJ Redick Believes Pistons Capitalized On Every Mistake The Lakers Made
As for the game against the Pistons, the Lakers did not have much trouble putting the ball in the basket, as they shot 54.1% from the field as a team. The problem, though, was they had 20 turnovers and allowed the Pistons to shoot 51.1% from the field, which meant they ended up losing 117-114. After the game, Redick called out his players over the turnovers.
“Yeah, I mean, we knew ahead of time that they were going to shock or blitz at times,” Redick said. “So, I’m not sure why we were so surprised by that. Then a number of them were playing in tight spaces, and a number of them were just dribbling the ball off a foot. Dribbling the ball out of bounds, passing to Malik Beasley so he can make a three. They capitalized every time we made a mistake.”
Redick did not like the carelessness of his players and the fact that they weren’t prepared for what the Pistons were going to throw at them despite being told about it. Those factors led to them dropping to 16-13 on the season and the players have to do better moving forward.
The Lakers will be in action next against the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center on Wednesday at 8 PM ET. It will be interesting to see how the team responds to Redick’s criticism in that marquee Christmas Day clash.
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