After a tight away win against the Utah Jazz, the Lakers were blown out on the second night of their back-to-back games. The 80-109 loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves saw JJ Redick’s side post their lowest-scoring output since 2017. Following the disappointing outcome, Lakers star Anthony Davis couldn’t deny how hot and cold his team has been.
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Speaking to Spectrum SportsNet, AD commented on how the Lakers have struggled to play two-way basketball recently. “We were really good offensively and our defense was a problem. And we kinda just start focusing on defense, and now, our offense has kind of shifted. We gotta get back to how we were earlier in the year where we playing on both sides of the ball very well,” the 10-time All-Star said.
With 20 turnovers against the Timberwolves, Los Angeles certainly struggled to get going last night. Their offensive woes led to the least-scoring game of LeBron James’ tenure in LA. Redick talked about how inconsistency is hurting his team at the moment, and it seems his star players certainly agree.
“Sometimes we look like a team that can compete with anyone, and sometimes we look like a team that looks terrible…We had games where we were phenomenal and we had games, you know, where we were disgusting, like tonight,” Davis concluded.
Anthony Davis: "Sometimes we look like a team that can compete with anyone an sometimes we look like a team that looks terrible."
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The Lakers would look to get their act together in spacing the floor, Davis promised. The Lakers’ randomness is starting to become a serious issue. They need an anchor on their team to center their efforts in the game, and Anthony Davis will have to be that guy.
AD himself had an uncharacteristically off night against Minnesota. He scored 12 points, his lowest mark of the 2024-25 season, while shooting just 28.6% from the field. However, he isn’t the only one who has been facing a slump for the Lakers recently.
LeBron James agrees that the Lakers offense needs to improve
Over the last four games, LeBron has struggled from three. After going 0-of-4 from deep last night, he has now missed his last 19 three-point attempts without a single make. That’s pretty concerning for the LA side.
Given how important spacing is in the modern game, the Lakers will certainly rely on their long-range shooting to return to their previous offensive form. And they don’t have a lot of options outside of LeBron when it comes to volume shooting. James too shared his concerns about the team on that end of the floor,
“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.”
LeBron also added how film watching will be the path forward for the team. He shared that the Lakers relied on the film room to work on their early season defensive woes, and he believes that the same approach will get them out of the rut.
JJ Redick’s side will have a chance to begin that reinforcement on Wednesday night when they travel to Kaseya Center to take on a 9-10 Miami Heat.
