After their ugly 10 of 40 3-pointers against the Warriors, the Lakers did worse last night: 9 of 45 3-pointers against the Clippers. Russell Westbrook’s 0 of 11 caused a lot of talk, but the skill deficit is global, and the 0 of 9 from 3-pointers in the last quarter is very expensive in a tight game.
“I’m clearly not going to sit here and insist on what we haven’t been able to do in every game” warns LeBron James. “It’s not behaving like a leader. Do I know what we can do? We can get high on defense! We did it tonight, and that’s what gave us a chance to win and we failed to do it. But that’s fine with me. »
From the first game, against the Warriors, LeBron James had warned that the team was not built around long-distance shooters, and that we had to do with it. He repeats it.
“If we depend on a certain number of outside shots in every game, then we are in trouble” recalls the Lakers winger. “So I don’t worry about it and I don’t think about it. It’s mostly about knowing if we give our all, if we are aggressive, if we are determined to fight every night. And we have to defend. When we defend, we give ourselves a good chance to win. »
On the side of the coach, Darvin Ham, we also answer the same questions, and in particular on the fact that the opponents let the Lakers shoot from afar and focus on defending the racket.
” This is how we want to play. If they want to give us those shots, then we’ll gladly accept them. What I mean is that we want to play like that: fast, physical and free. Moreover, I repeat, we see our guys putting these shots in training and in shootarounds. They just have to do it in game, and it’s as simple as that.”
