The Los Angeles Lakers and Wesley Matthews are still hoping to catch some shooting magic in these playoffs. They’ve weathered the storm and pulled out a 2-1 lead, but are far and away from out-sniping the Phoenix Suns. Even their one game at home did not turn around the Lakers’ shooting woes as they made just 25 percent of their threes. I thought home teams are supposed to heat up in their own building?
LeBron James and Anthony Davis are a combined 10 of 29 beyond the arc. Marc Gasol and Dennis Schroder are the lone Lakers with passable splits from long range. Gasol is at 60 percent but at only five attempts. Schroder is shooting 40 percent on 10 attempts through their three games. The team is dying to get back to the season average of 35.1 percent.
The potential absences of both Anthony Davis and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope only make that goal harder to achieve. Matthews is staying the course and offers the same confidence to the team. He spoke to the media and Harrison Faigen of SB Nation transcribed Saturday’s thoughts:
Here's Wes Matthews' full response. The gist? If they're going to shoot poorly, they have other ways to affect the game and allow themselves to win. pic.twitter.com/zTqPi8HNIL
— We Believe Faigen (@hmfaigen) May 29, 2021
Matthews is absolutely correct. The Lakers cannot continue to be this abysmal going forward. Eventually, a regression to the mean will come. The defense will only elevate any average shooting that they can do.
