MINNEAPOLIS — Playing on the second night of a road back-to-back can only be so much of a reason for the Lakers’ offensive performance in their loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night.
Because the 109-80 defeat – their fifth loss in seven games – was the latest example of struggles that have gone on for more than a week.
“I’ve not seen us play the way we played earlier in the year,” said Coach JJ Redick, whose team dropped to 12-9. “I mean, I’ve got to spend all day [on Tuesday] with my staff trying to figure out how we get back to that.”
Outside of D’Angelo Russell, who scored a season-high 20 points on 8-of-12 shooting (4 for 5 from 3-point range) to go with five assists, most of the Lakers struggled to find their rhythm.
LeBron James’ cold streak continued, with the 39-year-old star forward finishing with 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting to go with eight rebounds and four assists. James didn’t score his 10th point until he split a pair of free throws with 8:51 remaining to keep his double-digit scoring streak alive.
He also had six turnovers, continuing his trend of struggling to take care of the ball. James had averaged 5.1 turnovers in the previous 10 games entering Monday.
“They’re a big team,” Redick said of the Timberwolves. “We’ve played a lot of these teams lately. If you play stagnant against them, they’re gonna give you problems.”
James missed all four of his 3-point attempts, putting him at 19 consecutive misfires from behind the arc over the past four games.
“Work,” James responded when asked how he can get out of the shooting slump. “Just work. That’s all.”
He missed nine 3-point attempts in Sunday’s one-point victory over Utah, the first night of the back-to-back, didn’t make any of his four attempts from long range in Friday’s home loss to Oklahoma City and missed a pair of 3-point shots in a road win against the San Antonio Spurs last Wednesday.
“Certain players, maybe you need to say, ‘Hey, keep shooting.’ I’m not worried about that with 23,” Redick said of James before Monday’s game. “I want us to shoot 3s. I want us to shoot catch-and shoot threes. I want us to shoot rhythm dribble threes. I tend to, with all our guys, get a little frustrated when we pass up shots that are especially catch-and-shoot varieties.”
Anthony Davis also had an uncharacteristic inefficient shooting night, scoring just 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting to go with 11 rebounds and five assists.
Davis has scored fewer than 20 points in three of the last four games, and four of the last six, after scoring at least 21 in his first 12 games.
“For much of the season until recently, we didn’t have to always call his play for him to get the ball in a scoring position,” Redick said of Davis. “We just kind of naturally found it through the offense and he’s just not getting many easy ones right now.”
Rui Hachimura was the only other player to score in double figures, finishing with 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting.
Redick assessed his team at the quarter mark of the season as “uneven and inconsistent,” but this loss didn’t even clear that bar. The Lakers’ point total was their lowest since a 122-73 loss to Dallas on Jan. 22, 2017.
“A lot of randomness,” Davis said. “Anytime that we’re not at our best defensively, we kind of let that dictate our offense. The things that we have put in place to kind of get us moving the basketball and body movement, we haven’t been doing. And to be honest, I don’t think it was anything that they did. Especially defensively. We just were very bad offensively and it’s hurting us.”
The Lakers’ 102.4 offensive rating (points scored per 100 possessions) over the last six games ranks 28th in the league. They’ve scored fewer than 30 points in 19 of the last 24 quarters, and they are shooting just 30% from 3-point range over their past seven games, when they have been outscored by 10.1 points per game.
“Our offense is nasty right now,” James said.
After trailing by double digits for most of the final 18 minutes, Redick removed most of his main rotation players with 7:41 remaining and the team down 94-69.
The Timberwolves (10-10) were led by Julius Randle’s 18 points and Rudy Gobert’s 17 points and 12 rebounds. Naz Reid and Nickeil Alexander-Walker each scored 15. Anthony Edwards had only eight points on 3-for-13 shooting.
The Lakers’ four-game trip continues with a game against the Miami Heat on Wednesday and concludes against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday.
