Lakers’ Luka Doncic showing willingness to let it fly off the catch
LOS ANGELES — The Lakers’ offense, and building chemistry between Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Austin Reaves as the regular season wraps up, has been a significant talking point over the last week since James returned from his groin injury.
The team had, arguably, its best offensive performance with the trio at the helm in Saturday night’s trip-closing victory over the Memphis Grizzlies, in which the Lakers scored 134 points, their second-most in a game since Doncic made his Lakers debut on Feb. 10.
Among the keys to figuring out the offense is players shooting off the catch when the opportunities present themselves – something Doncic has shown an increased willingness to do over the last few seasons, and even more so with the Lakers.
When Lakers coach JJ Redick and Doncic were teammates with the Dallas Mavericks in 2020-21, Doncic averaged 1.3 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts out of his 8.3 3-point shots per game.
That figure has steadily risen over the last few seasons.
Doncic is averaging a career-high 2.5 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts this season out of his 9.8 attempts per game, including 2.8 in his 20 games with the Lakers entering Monday’s home matchup against the Houston Rockets.
“It just keeps us within the flow of our offense,” Redick said. “And I think there’s times where he can probably shoot it and he doesn’t. LeBron had one the other night in Chicago, where we created advantage and you got a corner kick out and he passed it up and we didn’t score on that possession.
“The flow of the offense, once the advantage is created and the good shot is created, you gotta take those. And I think for Luka, I would be curious to see like some lineup stuff there. But if you think about Dallas, the emergence of Jalen Brunson then playing with Kyrie [Irving] and now playing with LeBron and [AR], like he’s playing with other guys that can create advantages so he doesn’t have to create everything for himself.”
Another adjustment has been James being used as a screener more frequently.
“He’s been great for us as a screener all year,” Redick said of James. “Particularly if we get into some segments of games where whether teams are switching or not switching with his matchup, we’ve been able to get roller behind with him a decent amount. We got some of that in the Chicago game as well.”
HACHIMURA’S IMPORTANCE
Redick has said throughout the season that starting forward Rui Hachimura is key to making the Lakers’ small-ball lineups work.
He elaborated on why that’s the case.
“We realized early on in the season, the best thing for us and for him defensively, was to just have him switch whatever the switching groups were, he was part of each switching group,” Redick said. “He’s done a good job, whether it’s been guarding a smaller player, guarding bigger wings, guarding bigs. He’s done a good job of navigating that. And so that, that’s a big part of it. Just his ability to switch.
“And then he’s a laser. He shoots the ball extremely well. The shots against Indiana the other night, making big shots against Memphis. He’s gotten better throughout the season of just attacking closeouts and then making good decisions once those closeouts and reading the advantage is created on those closeouts, whether that’s a paint decision or getting to a next action, scoring at the rim, making a kick out pass. He’s developed there this year.”