The Lakers offense is having problems
Against top teams in their last two outings, the Lakers have struggled offensively, raising concerns with the playoffs rapidly approaching.
LOS ANGELES — Every Warriors-Lakers game has a certain allure to it. With LeBron James and Steph Curry still elite players and their respective teams fighting side by side in the standings, an early April matchup is as marquee as a regular-season game gets.
But while the final score was close in Thursday’s 123-116 Golden State win, it failed to illustrate the Lakers' struggles, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.
After a quick start for the purple and gold where they scored 17 points through the opening four minutes, their offense completely stalled. LA trailed 26-22 at the end of the first quarter and went on a brick-laying fest, missing 11 straight field goals.
They clawed their way back into the game and never threw in the towel, but moral victories are worth nothing this late in the season.
A scoring drought of this magnitude means you won't be walking away a victor, especially against a Warriors team that entered this game 12-0 with their new-look starting lineup featuring Jimmy Butler.
“We couldn’t score for six and a half minutes and I’m not surprised that they switched everything,” JJ Redick said. “We expected that. We scored 69 points in the second half against the same defense. I think we just got a little stagnant. Didn’t want to move. You got to move, you got to play with force, you got to get to the next thing.”
The small sample size over the last two games isn’t enough to warrant ringing the alarms, but criticism and concern of the offense is valid. They had their faux pas in the first half on Thursday and also started off poorly on Monday when they played the Rockets.
In that contest, they scored just 16 points in the opening quarter, a woeful figure in the modern NBA and perplexing when you have Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves and LeBron on the floor.
Dorian Finney-Smith and Gabe Vincent led the Lakers in that win over the Rockets and while that’s a testament to his quality as a player, a diet of DFS and Vincent 3-pointers will not often leave Los Angeles appropriately nourished.
Role players like Vincent, Jaxson Hayes and DFS are important, but they are supplementary to the Lakers’ big three, not a replacement for their production.
So, while Redick can praise the supporting cast until the cows come home, if the stars don’t produce, they won’t be playing NBA games in June.
In this Warriors game, the trio was, at best, a mixed bag.
Dončić couldn’t throw a pea in the ocean, shooting 6-17 from the field and 0-6 from 3-point range. The last time Luka played in a game and failed to score from deep was on Apr. 7, 2023, against the Bulls.
Reaves gave them a chance thanks to him getting hotter than fish grease in the fourth. In that period, he scored 20 points and went 6-9 from deep to give Los Angeles a chance.
The silver lining on offense was LeBron getting his groove back in this game. He finally started finding success driving into the paint and also ended the game going 5-8 from deep.
“I just tried to press, get downhill,” LeBron said. “My rhythm as far as my jumpshot felt pretty good today. I was shooting from the free throw line extremely well as of late, but it’s probably the best physically I’ve felt, so hopefully I can build off of that.”
It’s hard not to view LeBron’s performance as a glass half-empty. Had he started the game with the kind of aggression he demonstrated in the second half, perhaps they never would have ended up in a big hole, and that late rally could’ve ended as a narrow win instead of a loss.
However, if this game brings back LeBron’s offensive production, then maybe these struggles can quickly become a thing of the past.
There isn’t much time for that to happen, though. Los Angeles has six games left and with the postseason looming, teams will start to imitate the success the Warriors and Rockets have found in neutralizing the Lakers’ offense.
In fact, they might have to play one of these two teams and face these demons head-on as early as the opening round.
If these Lakers want to achieve their ultimate goal, greatness can’t be à la carte; it needs to be a prix fixe menu with both offense and defense available.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.